Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

Order LXVIII. MonimiaceÆ

Order LXVIII. MonimiaceÆ.

1. Hedycarya, Forst.

Small trees or shrubs. Leaves opposite, entire or toothed. Flowers dioecious, in axillary cymes or racemes. Male flowers: Perianth broad, cup-shaped; segments 5–10, inflexed, more or less connate at the base. Stamens numerous, covering almost the whole of the disc; filaments very short or almost wanting; anthers 2-celled, dehiscing by introrse or lateral slits. Female flowers: Perianth similar to that of the males, but rather smaller. Staminodia wanting. Carpels numerous, covering the whole disc, sessile, terminated by a thick conical style; ovule pendulous, anatropous. Fruit of few or several drupes crowded on the top of the disc-shaped receptacle. Seed pendulous; albumen copious; embryo axile, radicle superior.

A genus of 8 or 10 species, one of which is endemic in New Zealand, and another in Australia, the remainder being natives of New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga.

2. Laurelia, Juss.

Tall aromatic forest-trees. Leaves opposite, coriaceous. Flowers diœcious or polygamous, in axillary cymes or racemes. Male flowers: Perianth-tube short, campanulas; lobes 5–12, in 2 or 3 series, subequal or the outer shorter. Stamens 6–12; filaments short. 2-glandular at the base; anthers 2-celled, opening by 2 upturned valves. Female flowers (or hermaphrodite): Perianth elongating after fertilisation, narrow-urceolate or tubular, ultimately 3–5-cleft. Stamens reduced to scales, or the outer series alone perfect. Carpels numerous, fusiform, pilose, narrowed into long plumose styles; ovule solitary, erect, anatropous. Achenes small, densely pilose, included in the enlarged perianth. Seed albuminous; embryo small, radicle inferior.

Besides the New Zealand species, which is endemic, there is a second found in Chili. The genus is very closely allied to the Australian Atherosperma, which principally differs in the flowers being seated within 2 cymbiform bracts.

1. L. novæ-zealandiæ, A. Cunn. Precur. n. 354.—A tall forest-tree, often attaining a height of 80 to 100 or even 120 ft.; trunk 4–6 ft. diam., usually with radiating buttresses at the base; bark pale, almost white; branchlets opposite, tetragonous, the younger ones faintly pubescent. Leaves opposite, petiolate, 1½–3 in. long, oblong or elliptic-oblong or obovate, obtuse, cuneate at the base, coarsely and bluntly serrate, coriaceous, dark-green and glossy above, paler beneath, glabrous or silky-pubescent when young. Flowers small, ⅕–¼ in. diam., polygamo-diœcious, in axillary racemes ½–1 in. long; pedicels silky, as is the perianth externally. Male perianth shallow, 5–6-partite almost to the base; stamens about 12. Female (or hermaphrodite) perianth with a swollen tube contracted above; segments of the limb short, spreading. Stamens either all reduced to erect scales, or some or all of the outer row perfect. Carpels numerous; styles long, silky. Fruiting-perianth. much enlarged and elongated, often quite 1 in. long, narrow-urceolate, splitting irregularly into 3–5 valves. Achenes 6–12, narrowed into long plumose styles.— Raoul, Choix, 42: Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 218; Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 71. Atherosperma novœ-zealandiœ, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 240. North Island: Abundant in swampy forests. South Island: Various localities in Marlborough, Nelson, and Westland, rare and local. Sea-level to 2000 ft. Pukatea. October–November. The wood is pale-brown, often prettily clouded with darker brown. It is strong and tough, and does not readily split, so that it is occasionally used for boat-building, and more rarely for cabinetwork. The leaves and young branches are aromatic when bruised.