Colenso. — Xsichj-tliscovercJ Indigenous Plains. 259 



colour with a yellowish tinge ; stipules two or more, half the 

 length of leaves, subulate, erect, grey. Flowers very numerous 

 at tops of branches, in small axillary cymose-panicles of 6-8 

 flowers, twice the length of leaves ; pedicels about 1 line long, 

 each with two scarious brown bracteoles at base. Petals 0. 

 Calyx large, spreading, rotate, white, petaloid, 2 lines diameter, 

 pubescent on outside (with pedicels and peduncle), lobes broadly 

 ovate, reflexed, with a central ridge the whole length above, 

 margins incurved, apices sub-acute, thickened ; stamens spread- 

 ing and inclined, a little longer than the style, brown ; anthers 

 oblong, obtuse, light-brown ; style very short, fuscous, 3- (some- 

 times 2-) branched ; branches long, spreading, clavate ; stigma 

 large, globular, papillose, dark-brown, ovary half exserted, sub- 

 conico-rotund, thickly villous with long, whitish, shining hairs ; 

 cocci 3, narrow elliptic, obtuse, concave. 



Hab. Growing with Leptospermum, on dry, "open, hilly 

 grounds, back of Poverty Bay ; 1885 : Mr. H. Hill. 



Obs. A species certainly very new to the common northern 

 New Zealand species (P.. phylicifolia, Lodd.), but differing from 

 it in several characters, the most striking being its bright-green 

 foliage, (which colour it also retains in drying,) and its longer 

 panicles of much larger flowers, that are spreading, very white, 

 and conspicuous ; an entirely different looking plant from its 

 northern congener. 



■&• 



Order XXVII. HALORAGE.E. 

 Genus 1. Haloragis, Forst. 

 1. H. minima, sp. nov. 



Plant very small, glabrous, wiry, prostrate and creeping, 

 rooting at nodes ; root-stock and rootlets glabrous ; branches 

 ascending, 1-2 inches high, few (4-6) leaved. Leaves opposite, 

 sub-orbicular and orbicular-ovate, not cordate, apiculate, about 

 1 line long (sometimes, but rarely, 1\ lines), crenate or inciso- 

 serrate with minute coloured teeth 2-6 to a leaf, thickish, nerve- 

 less, light-green. Flowers very minute, scarcely £ a line long, 

 simple-panicled and racemed at ends of branches, opposite in 

 pairs, lowest pair very distant from the rest on peduncle, upper 

 ones crowded, pendulous on short pedicels, axillary, springing 

 from simple entire foliaceous green bracts or floral leaves, with 

 very minute coloured bracteoles at base of pedicels ; calyx-tube 

 sub-globular or turbinate, 8-ribbed, glabrous, shining, dark-red ; 

 lobes large, deltoid, green with purple margins ; petals boat- 

 shaped, conniving, apiculate, dark- purple-red, anthers exserted, 

 oblong, obtuse base and tip ; stigmas very plumose ; fruit not 

 seen. 



Hab. Tarawera, high lands between Napier and Taupo ; 

 December, 1884 : Mr. H. Hill. 



