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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

3. Tetrachondra, Petrie

3. Tetrachondra, Petrie.

A small creeping densely matted perennial herb, glabrous or nearly so. Leaves small, all opposite, elliptic-oblong, obtuse, quite entire; petioles broad, connate at the base. Flowers terminating short axillary branchlets, minute, solitary, tetramerous. Calyx persistent, deeply 4-fid; segments ovate, obtuse. Corolla slightly longer than the calyx, subrotate; tube very short, naked; limb with 4 ovate lobes imbricate in the bud. Stamens 4, inserted at the base of the sinus between the corolla-lobes; filaments as long or rather longer than the anthers; anthers 2-celled, small, rounded, dorsi-fixed. Ovary 4-partite to the base; style erect from between the lobes, twice as long as the ovary; stigma small. Nutlets 4, attached by a small base, rounded at the back and top, setulose, longer than the persistent calyx and style. Seed erect, albuminous; embryo cylindrical, almost as long as the albumen; cotyledons equalling the radicle.

1.T. Hamiltonii, Petrie in Hook. Ic. Plant. t. 2250.—Forming densely matted patches several inches in diameter. Leaves 1/12–1/10 in. long, rather fleshy, obscurely dotted. Flowers minute, 1/12 in. diam.—Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxv. (1893) 269. Tillæa Hamiltonii, Kirk ex W. S. Hamilton in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xvii. (1885) 292.

South Island: Otago—Lowlands in the south and east. Between the Lee Stream and Taieri; Hindon; Waipahi; Invercargill, Petrie! Makarewa River, W. S. Hamilton! Sea-level to 1800 ft.

page 473

A remarkable little plant, the systematic position of which is very doubtful. It was originally placed in Tillœa by Kirk, and no doubt there is considerable outward similarity with that genus, although it differs fundamentally in the gamopetalous corolla, the 4-lobed ovary, and the simple imbedded style. Prof. Oliver, no doubt influenced by the 4-lobed ovary, transferred it to the Boraginaceœ, although he points out ("Icones Plantarum," t. 2250) that it departs from the characters of the order in the opposite leaves connate at the base, and in the albuminous seeds. Dr. Hans Hallier, in an interesting paper printed in the "Berichten der Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft" for 1902, suggests that it should be considered an anomalous member of the Scrophularineœ, and that its nearest ally is the section Pygmea of Veronica. A study of the early development of the corolla would probably either prove or disprove this view.