510 Transactions. — Botany. 



Aet. LI. — A Revision of the New Zealand Species of 

 Hymenanthera, B. Br. 



By T. Kirk, F.L.S. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 26th February, 1896.'] 



Hymenanthera was first published by R. Brown in his ac- 

 count of the botany of the Congo appended to Tucker's 

 narrative of his expedition. Two plants in the Banksian 

 Herbarium were named by him H. dentata and H. angustifolia 

 respectively, but the descriptions were first published by De 

 Candolle in 1824 (Prodr., i., 315) ; the former was characterized 

 by its oblong denticulate leaves, the latter by its entire linear 

 leaves : both are now united under H. dentata by the common 

 consent of botanists. In 1833 Endlicher described ZZ". latifolia 

 from Norfolk Island ; and in 1842 A. Cunningham described 

 H. ohlongifolia, which is now referred to H. dentata. The 

 first New Zealand species was discovered by Banks and 

 Solander in 1769, probably in Queen Charlotte Sound, but was 

 completely lost until 1876, when it was rediscovered by J. D. 

 Enys and the writer, who described it under the name of 

 H. ohovata in 1894. The first-described New Zealand species 

 was discovered by R. Cunningham, on the coast opposite the 

 Cavallos Islands, in 1834 ; his specimens, however, were im- 

 perfect, and the plant was published by A. Cunningham in his 

 Precursor as Sccevola (?) novce-zcalandicB ; it was not until 1853 

 that the plant was properly understood and described by Sir 

 Joseph Hooker as Hyvienanthera crassifolia, the value of the 

 excellent description being enhanced by the beautiful plate 

 which accompanied it. Another New Zealand species was 

 described by J. Buchanan as II. travcrsii in 1882, and the 

 Australian II. dentata was collected in the Southern Alps 

 about the same time. H. latifolia of Norfolk Island had been 

 discovered on the Great and Little Barrier Islands by the 

 writer six years earlier. Another species, discovered on the 

 Chatham Islands by Captain Gilbert Mair, was referred by 

 Baron von Mueller to H. latifolia as a variety in 1864, but in 

 this paper is treated as a distinct species. A synopsis of 

 the distinctive characters of each is appended. 



Hymenanthera comprises sparingly- branched shrubs which 

 are usually erect, and others which are excessively branched 

 and most frequently depressed ; the branches of the latter are 

 sometimes naked, divaricating, rigid, and spinous, with pale 

 or brownish bark which is often closely dotted with lenticels. 

 The leaves are alternate or sometimes fascicled, entire or 

 denticulate or serrate, petioled, usually coriaceous or rarely 



