Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
3. Liparophyllum, Hook. f
3. Liparophyllum, Hook. f.
A small creeping herb. Leaves linear, tufted, entire. Peduncles solitary, terminal, 1-flowered. Flowers small, white. Calyx deeply 5-partite; segments linear. Corolla subrotate, deeply 5-lobed: lobes with broad thin margins, induplicate-valvate. Stamens 5; filaments short, broad; anthers oblong. Ovary 1-celled, with 2 parietal placentas; style very short; stigma broadly 2-lamellace. Fruit globose, fleshy or succulent, indehiscent. Seeds numerous; testa crustaceous.
A monotypic genus, confined to New Zealand and Tasmania.
1. | L. Grtinnii, Hook. f. in Hook. Lond. Journ. Bot. vi. (1847) 472.—Small, perfectly glabrous. Rhizome 3–9 in. long, stout, creeping, branched, emitting long thick rootlets. Leaves tufted, ½–1 in. long, narrow-linear or linear-spathulate, obtuse, thick and fleshy, with a broad membranous sheathing base, quite entire. Peduncles stout, much shorter than the leaves. Flowers small, ⅙ in. diam. Calyx almost equalling the corolla; segments linear, fleshy, acute. Corolla divided ⅔ way down; lobes ovate, 3-nerved, margins undulate. Stamens inserted just below the sinus of the page 457 lobes. Ovary broadly ovoicl or almost globose; ovules numerous. Fruit globose, about ¼ in. diam. Seeds orbicular, somewhat compressed.—Fl. Tasm. i. 273, t. 87; Benth. Fl. Austral. iv. 381; Peine in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xii. (1880) 354.
South Island: Nelson—Mount Rochfort and other mountains near West-port, Dr. Gaze! W. Townson! Otago—Longwood Range, Kirk! Stewart Island: Muddy flats at Port Pegasus and Paterson's Inlet, Petrie! G. M. Thomson! Kirk! Sea-level to 3500 ft. A curious little plant, probably not uncommon in mountain bogs on the west side of the South Island. |