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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

[Introduction to Order XXXVI. CaprifoliaceÆ.]

Erect or climbing shrubs or small trees, rarely herbs. Leaves opposite, seldom alternate, simple or rarely pinnate, usually exstipulate. Flowers hermaphrodite, regular or irregular. Calyx-tube adnate to the ovary; limb 3–5-toothed or -lobed. Corolla gamopetalous, epigynous, rotate or funnel-shaped or tubular; limb often irregular or 2-lipped; lobes 4–5, imbricate, rarely valvate. Stamens 4–5, inserted on the tube of the corolla and alternating with its lobes, equal or unequal. Ovary inferior, 2–5-celled (rarely 1-celled), usually crowned with an epigynous disc; style long with a capitate stigma, or short and 2–5-lobed; ovules 1 or more in each cell, pendulous, anatropous. Fruit usually a berry or drupe, rarely a capsule, 1- or many-seeded. Seeds with copious albumen; embryo usually minute, radicle superior.

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A small order, comprising 14 genera and about 200 species, mostly natives of the Northern Hemisphere, with few tropical or southern representatives. The order is of little economical importance, but many of the species are cultivated in gardens for the beauty or fragrance of their flowers, as the various kinds of honeysuckles and woodbines, &c. The single New Zealand genus is endemic.