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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

[Introduction to Order Lxxxv. PandaneÆ.]

Trees or shrubs or climbers, frequently with aerial roots. Leaves usually long and narrow, acuminate, sheathing at the base, coria-ceous, keeled, margins and keel spinulose-serrate. Flowers dioecious, both sexes densely crowded on simple or branched page 741spadices protected by leafy spathes. Perianth wanting. Male flowers: Stamens numerous; filaments all distinct or connate in clusters; anthers erect, basifixed, 2-celled. Eudimentary ovary present or absent. Female flowers: Staminodia small or wanting. Ovary 1-celled, free or connate with those of adjoining flowers; stigma nearly sessile, papillose; ovules either solitary and basal, or numerous and attached to parietal placentas. Fruit an oblong or globose mass of densely compacted free or connate tough or fleshy drupes. Seeds solitary or many in each drupe; testa seriated; albumen hard and fleshy; embryo minute.

A small order of 3 genera and about 160 species; most abundant in the islands of eastern tropical Africa and the Malay Archipelago, extending south-wards to Australia, the Pacific islands, and New Zealand; not known in a native state in America. The leaves of most of the species are used for mat-making, thatching, &c, and would probably be useful for the manufacture of paper. The New Zealand genus extends as far north as Malacca.