480 Transactions. — Botany. 



auce, differing largely from all the other described New Zea- 

 land ones of this genus ; as also from all others known to me ; 

 and, indeed, from all New Zealand shrubs and trees in general. 

 Unfortunately, its flowers and fruit are still unknown ; not- 

 withstanding, I have no doubt of it being a species of 

 Myrsine. I have only yet met with a single plant, although 

 I have sought often and diligently for others. 



Order XLYII. Apocynej2. 

 Genus 1. Parsonsia, Br. 



1. P. ochracea, sp. nov. 



A bushy climbing shrub composed of many thickly-inter- 

 woven branches, rising to the height of 6ft.-7ft. ; branches 

 very long, slender, 1 line diameter, bark red-brown ; branch- 

 lets very slender, almost wiry, short. Leaves opposite, 

 distant, linear, 3in.-4in. long, 1 line wide, tips obtuse and 

 sub-acute, glabrous, dark-green (drying olive-green), striate 

 below, the lamina spreading at almost right-angles ; petiole 1 

 line long, sub-vertical, with a small thick node at base. 

 Flowers axillary, in small few-flowered graceful panicles, 

 half as long as leaves (sometimes in larger open airy leafy 

 panicles), usually 3- or 5-flowered ; peduncles very slender, ^in. 

 long, puberulent (as also pedicels and lobes of calyx) ; pedi- 

 cels filiform, opposite, 4 lines long, bracteolate at base ; brac- 

 teoles linear, narrow, 1 line long, spreading ; tips thickly 

 ciliate. Calyx dark-green, nearly as long as tube of corolla ; 

 lobes long, narrow, obcuneate, tmnid at base, margins mem- 

 branous, ciliate ; hypogynous scales conical glabrous obtuse. 

 Corolla sub-campanulate, 3 lines long, ochraceous ; lobes twice 

 the length of tube, sub-oblong-spathulate, tip sub-acute, dimi- 

 diate excised on one side near the tip, slightly revolute, 

 veined ; largely overlapping in the bud. Anthers half 

 exserted, sagittate, narrow, acute, with long divergent tails 

 as long as anthers. Stigma capitate, semi-elliptic (glans 

 form), constricted near base, base truncate. Pod sub-terete, 

 acuminate, 6in. long, yV^- "^vide, slightly puberulent, tip 

 obtuse. 



Hah. Edges of dry woods, south of Dannevirke, County of 

 Waipawa ; 1888 : W. C. (Flowering in December.) 



Obs. I. This plant has caused me a deal of close study and 

 examination ; partly owing to the great variableness in our 

 species of this genus, and partly to Sir J. D. Hooker having 

 reduced his original four species in the " Flora N.Z." to two 

 species in his later work, "Handbook of the N.Z. Flora," 

 with the remark, " I am convinced there are but two species of 

 this genus in New Zealand" {loc. cit., p. 187). To this, how- 

 ever, I cannot subscribe. 



