4. BŒhmeria, Jacq.

Shrubs or small trees. Leaves alternate or opposite, toothed, 3-nerved; stipules usually free, deciduous. Flowers monœcious or diœcious, in small globose glomerules; glomerules axillary, either solitary or spiked or racemed or panicled. Male flowers: Perianth 3–5-lobed or -partite; segments valvate. Stamens 3–5, inflexed in bud. Eudimentary ovary clavate or globose. Female flowers: Perianth tubular, compressed or ventricose, mouth often contracted, 2–4-toothed. Ovary included, sessile or stipitate; stigma filiform, persistent; ovule solitary, erect. Achene closely invested by the persistent perianth, crustaceous. Seed albuminous; cotyledons ovate or elliptic.

Species about 50, widely spread through the tropics of both hemispheres.

• 1. B. dealbata, Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxiv. (1892) 410. —A small tree 8–25 ft. high; branches terete, pubescent with minute appressed hairs. Leaves alternate, 3–6 in. long, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, rounded at the base, rarely slightly cordate, obtusely serrate, prominently 3-nerved and with the secondary veins also strongly marked, green and glabrous and rugulose above, white and hoary beneath; petioles stout, ¾–2 in. long, grooved on the upper surface. Flowers minute, in small axillary sessile glomerules, which are either unisexual or androgynous. Male flowers: Perianth deeply 4-partite; segments oblong-ovate, acuminate, clothed with erect hairs. Stamens exserted. Females: Perianth tubular, dilated below, contracted at the 2-toothed mouth. Stigma exserted, long, filiform, hirsute. Fruiting - perianth much compressed, broadly winged. Achene very minute, ovoid, quite smooth.

  Kermadec Islands: Sunday Island, not uncommon at low elevations. Flowers most of the year.

  Nearly intermediate in characters between the Norfork Island B. australis and the Lord Howe Island B. calophleba, but apparently distinct from both.