86' Transactions. — Botany. 



I think, I have ever known of this genus, so pre-eminently- 

 dioecious. 



2. C. maiUiflora, sp. nov. 



Tree erect, 15ft. -18ft. high, much branched throughout and 

 very leafy ; bark grey, soft, wrinkled ; branches and branch- 

 lets very numerous, opposite, not divaricate, sub-erect, spread- 

 ing ; ultimate branchlets thickly pubescent ; hairs brown. 

 Leaves small, plentiful, opposite in single pairs, ai:id 2-3 pairs 

 together at tips of branches and short lateral branchlets, the 

 single and the outer pairs alw^ays the largest, very membrana- 

 ceous and soft, sub-orbicular with apices retuse and cuspidate, 

 and broadly-elliptic much acuminate with tips acute, 3-4 

 (somethnes 5) lines long, their bases gradually tapering into 

 the petioles, glabrous, green on both sides, a little paler on the 

 lower surface with scattered long whitish sub-strigillose weak 

 hairs (young leaves very hairy below), margined and finely 

 crenulate ; veins light-red, reticulate, conspicuous on both 

 surfaces ; petioles 2-3 lines long, broad and trinerved at junc- 

 tion with limb, very slender at base, densely hairy on under 

 surface ; hairs adpressed, sub-strigose ; stipules ovate-acumi- 

 nate, very hairy, their tips glabrous, shining. Mowers : fern. 

 very numerous, axillary, mostly sub-fascicled in threes, some- 

 times single, and 2 together ; calyx very small, tube shortly 

 4-cleft, slightly puberulous (having a double appearance from 

 their close connate stipules, that are larger, with longer acute 

 lobes). Corolla small, 1 line long, green, glabrous, campanu- 

 late, 4-lobed, cut scarcely half -down; lobes ovate, acute, 

 recurved. Styles 2, slender, 3 lines long, acute, pink, spread- 

 ing. Drupe small, globose, 1^-2 lines diameter, slightly 

 depressed at apex, dark-piirple, glossy ; nuts 2, very small, 

 hemispherical, about 1 line wide ; one thick, flat on one side 

 and very gibbous, the other much thinner, scale-like. Male 

 flow^ers not seen. 



Hah. Low woods south of Dannevirke, County of Waipawa ; 

 flowering November, fruiting April, 1887-88 : W. C. 



Obs. I. This species will naturally rank among the larger 

 ones of this genus. Its striking character when in flower is 

 the prodigious number of its ? blossoms, covering the whole 

 surface of the tree from top to bottom, which — from their 

 being coloured and visible from a distance — has a most striking 

 effect. When I first saw it — looking down on it from an open 

 glade in the hill-forest's side — I could not conceive what plant 

 it might possibly be, its whole outside being sufi'used with a 

 delicate pink hue. It is the only known species of this large 

 and increasing genus bearing such a character. I was much 

 disappointed, however, subsequently, on seeking its fruit (on 

 two occasions — when immature in February, and when ripe). 



