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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
2. Laurelia, Juss
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. page 601Carpels 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. |