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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
1. Samolus, Tourn
1. Samolus, Tourn.
Annual or perennial herbs. Leaves alternate. Flowers white, in terminal racemes or corymbs. Calyx half-superior, 5-fid, persistent. Corolla perigynous, subcampanulate; tube short; limb 5-lobed or -partite. Stamens 5, affixed to the corolla-tube, alternating with as many staminodes; filaments very short. Ovary globose, adnate to the calyx-tube, the tip free; style short; ovules numerous, anatropous. Capsule globose or ovoid, half-inferior, the free part 5-valved, many-seeded. Seeds minute, orbicular or angled.; embryo transverse; hilum basilar.
Species 8, one of them almost cosmopolitan, most of the rest inhabiting various parts of the Southern Hemisphere.
| 1. | S. repens, Pers. Syn. i. 171.—A glabrous perennial herb; stems 4–12 in. long, erect, ascending, or prostrate from a tufted rootstock, often emitting creeping and rooting stolons from the base. Leaves fleshy, very variable in size and shape, ⅙–1 in. long, obovate or linear-obovate to linear-spathulate or linear, the lower ones usually broader and petiolate, the upper smaller and narrower and often sessile, Flowers about ¼–1 in. diam., axillary or in few-flowered terminal racemes; pedicels longer than the leaves. Calyx-tube adnate to about the middle of the ovary, lobes acute. Corolla broad, the tube usually about as long as the calyx-lobes. Capsule broadly ovoid, ⅙–⅕ in. diam.—F. Muell Veg. Chath. Is. 34; Benth. Fl. Austral. iv. 271. S. littoralis, R. Br. Prodr. 428; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 185; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 372; Raoul, Choix, 44; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 207; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 185. Sheffieldia repens, Forst. Char. Gen. 18; Prodr. n. 67.
Kermadec Islands, North and South Islands, Stewart Island, Chatham Islands, Auckland Islands: Common along the coast, in salt marsbes and on rocks. November–January. Also in Australia and Tasmania and New Caledonia. |