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.

• 1. H. arborea, Forst. Char. Gen. 128, t. 64.—A small tree 20–40 ft. high with a trunk 9–20 in. diam. or more; bark, dark-brown; branches ascending, pubescent at the tips. Leaves opposite, petiolate, 2–5 in. long including the petiole, linear-oblong to obovate-oblong or obovate, acute or obtuse, distantly coarsely serrate or rarely entire, coriaceous, dark-green above, paler beneath, glabrous or more or less pubescent, especially on the petiole and midrib beneath. Racemes axillary, often corymbosely branched, shorter than the leaves; pedicels variable in length, pubescent. page 600Male perianth ⅓–½ in. diam., saucer-shaped, pubescent. Stamens-very numerous; anthers sessile, pubescent; along the back. Female perianth ¼in. across. Carpels 8–20. Drupes 4–10, crowded, stipi-tate, ½ in. long, oblong, obtuse, bright-red, succulent; endocarp hard, crustaceous.—H. dentata, Forst. Prodr. n. 379; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 354; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 336;\\ Raoul, Choix, 30, t. 30; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 219; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 240; Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 110. H. scabra, A. Cunn. Precur. n. 337. Zanthoxylum novæ-zealandiæ, A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 291, t. 33.

  North and South Islands: Abundant in woods from the Three Kings Islands and the North Cape to Banks Peninsula and Milford Sound. Sea-level to 2500 ft. Porokaiwhiri. October–November.

  The specific name arborea was applied in J. and G. Forster's "Characteres Generum," published in 1776, and must therefore take precedence over that of dentata, published by G. Forster in the "Prodromus" in 1786.