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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
1. Freycinetia, Gaud
1. Freycinetia, Gaud.
Climbing or scrambling shrubs. Stems often very long, branched, rooting. Leaves long, linear, sheathing at the base, keeled, entire or more usually serrulate. Spadices terminal, fas-cicled, sessile or pedunculate, enclosed within foliaceous bracts with fleshy and often coloured bases. Male flowers numerous, each one consisting of several stamens surrounding a rudimentary ovary; filaments short; anthers oblong. Female flowers of many 1-celled ovaries densely packed on the rhachis of the spadix, co-hering at their bases, each ovary surrounded by minute staminodia, apex broad, truncate, crenulate; placentas 2 or more; ovules numerous, in 2 series on each placenta. Fruit an oblong mass of more or less fleshy or almost woody drupes. Seeds numerous, fusiform or ellipsoid; testa crustaceous or membranous; albumen copious; embryo basilar.
A genus of over 50 species, scattered through Malaya, the Pacific islands, and Australia, with one species in New Zealand.
| 1. | F. Banksii, A. Cunn. Precur. n. 320.—A lofty climber, often reaching the tops of tall trees, or scrambling over rocks or prostrate trunks; branches many, stout, rooting. Leaves numerous towards the tips of the branches,½–3 ft. long, ½–1 in. broad, linear-elongate, finely acuminate, broadly sheathing at the base, concave, coriaceous, nerved, margins and midrib minutely spinulose-serrate. Spadices fascicled at the tips of the branches, cylindrical, peduncled, 3–6 in. long, dioecious; bracts numerous, leafy, the innermost with white or pale-lilac thick and succulent bases. Filaments rather long, filiform. Ovaries very densely packed, about ⅓ in. long, rather fleshy in fruit. Seeds small, linear-oblong; testa cellular.—Raoul, Choix, 41; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 237, t. 54, 55; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 275; Bot. Mag. t. 6028.
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North Island: Abundant in forests from the North Cape to the East Cape and Taranaki, less plentiful from thence southwards to Wellington. South Island: Lowland districts in Nelson and Marlborough, and along the West Coast from Colling wood to Okarito and Milford Sound, not common. Sea- level to 2500 ft. Kiekie; Taiohara (the edible bracts); Ureure (the fruit). September–November; ripe fruit in May. The leaves are occasionally plaited into kits or baskets by the Maoris. The white fleshy bracts surrounding the spadices are sweet and sugary, with an aromatic flavour, and are often eaten; the fruit less commonly so. I have seen no description of F. inclinans, Benn. Pl Jav. Rar. i. 32, said to be found in New Zealand. |