2. Teucridium, Hook. f.

A much-branched shrub; branchlets slender, 4-angled. Leaves small, opposite, petiolate, entire. Flowers axillary, solitary. Calyx broadly campanulate, 5-lobed; lobes acute. Corolla-tube short; limb oblique, spreading, 2-lipped, 5-lobed; the lower lobe the largest. Stamens 4, didynamous, attached to the base of the corolla-tube, far exserted; anthers l-celled. Ovary villous at the tip, 4-lobed, imperfectly 4-celled; ovules 1 in each cell, pendulous; style slender, arcuate, 2-fid; branches subulate, shortly stigmatose. Fruit small, sunk in the persistent calyx, 4-lobed to the middle, ultimately splitting into 4 hispid pyrenes. Seed solitary in each pyrene, laterally affixed; albumen wanting; cotyledons large.

A peculiar monotypic genus confined to New Zealand. Although allied to Vitex, it has the anomalous character of a 4-lobed ovary, thus showing an approach to the Labiatœ.