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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
4. Asperula. Linn
4. Asperula. Linn.
Herbs with slender quadraugular stems. Leaves in whorls of 4 to 8, of which 2 are leaves and the remainder stipules, as in Galium. Flowers minute, solitary or in axillary or terminal cymes. Calyx-limb wanting. Corolla funnel-shaped, with a distinct limb and 4 spreading lobes. Stamens 4; anthers exserted-Ovary 2-celled; styles 2, more or less connate at the base; stigmas, capitate. Fruit didymous, small, dry, indehiscent.
page 267A genus comprising about 60 species, found in the temperate and subtropical regions of the Old World, but not extending to America or South Africa. It only differs from Galium in the funnel-shaped corolla. The single New Zealand species is endemic.
| 1. | A. perpusilla, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 114.—A small slender decumbent perennial. Stems weak, filiform, branched, 1–3 in. high, glabrous. Leaves in whorls of 4, 1/15–1/10 in. long, lanceolate, acuminate, awned, straight or curved, margins usually ciliate. Flowers minute, white, axillary or terminal, solitary, often unisexual; males usually pedicelled; females sessile. Calyx-tube glabrous. Corolla 1/12 in. diam., campanulate, 4- or rarely 5-partite, tube very short. Styles united below, their tips free, divergent. Fruit of 2 globose minutely granulate cocci.—Handb. N.Z. Fl. 121; Kirk, Students' Fl. 248. A. aristifera, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxi. (1889) 88.
North and South Islands, Stewart Island: Not uncommon from the Lower Waikato southwards, ascending to 3000 ft. November–January. The corolla-tube is much shorter than is usual in Asperula, and the species would almost be better placed in Galium. A. fragrantissima, Armst, in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xiv. (1882) 359, is probably a form of Galium umbrosum. |