.jpg)
Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
5. Dianella, Lam
5. Dianella, Lam.
Glabrous perennial herbs. Rootstock often branched. Leaves numerous, crowded at the base of the stem, linear, distichous, equitant and sheathing at the base. Flowers pedicellate, nodding, laxly cymose; cymes arranged in a broad open terminal panicle. Perianth marcescent; segments 6, distinct, spreading. Stamens 6, hypogynous, or the 3 inner affixed to the base of the segments; filaments thickened; anthers erect or recurved, basifixed, open-ing by terminal pores or short longitudinal slits. Ovary sessile-or shortly stalked, 3-celled; ovules 4–8 in each cell; style filiform; stigma minute. Fruit a globose berry. Seeds few, ovoid or com-pressed; testa black, smooth and shining; albumen fleshy; em-bryo small, linear.
page 715Species 11 or 12, chiefly Australian, but found also in New Zealand, Poly-nesia, tropical Asia, and the Mascarene Islands. The single New Zealand species extends to Norfolk Island and several parts of Polynesia.
| 1. | D. intermedia, Endl. Prodr. Fl. Ins. Norfolc. 28.—Rhizome stout, woody, creeping, usually with underground runners. Leaves numerous, crowded at the top of the rhizome, distichous and sheathing at the base,1½–3 ft. long or more, ½–¾ in. wide, narrow linear-ensiform, acute or acuminate, keeled, margins and keel minutely scabrid. Panicle 6–24 in. long, much branched; peduncles and pedicels slender, the latter curved. Flowers small, ¼–⅓ in. diam., greenish or purplish - white. Perianth - segments oblong, spreading; the 3 outer usually 5–6-nerved; the 3 inner rather broader, 3-nerved. Filaments expanded into a yellow or orange struma often thicker than the anther; anther linear-oblong, yellow. Berry ½–¾ in. long, broadly oblong, bright-blue.—A. Cunn. Precar. n. 300; Raoul, Choix, 40; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 255; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 283. D. nigra, Col. in. Trans. N.Z. Inst. xvi. (1884) 339. D. reflexa, Col. l.c. xxvii. (1895) 396.
North and South Islands: Prom the Three Kings Islands and the North Cape to Foveaux Strait, abundant. Sea-level to 2500 ft. Turutu. November–December. |