Oolenso. — Newly-discovertd Indigenous Plants, 275 



Ohdeb VII. LILIACEjE 

 Genus 6. Arthropodium, Br. 

 1. A. reftcxum, sp. nov. 



Plant small, leaves many, 10-12, nearly flat, grass-like, 

 membranaceous, green, glabrous, margins purple, sub-linear- 

 lanceolate, acuminate, tips acute, 9 inches long, 3 lines wide, 

 spreading, drooping, obsoletely veined, keeled below, half- 

 cksping and deeply canaliculate at base, with margins con- 

 niving, bases (also those of pedicels and scape) thickly purple- 

 spotted ; scape 9-10 (or more) inches long, erect, sub-flexuous, 

 very slender, almost filiform, less than £ line diameter at base ; 

 cauline or floral leaves large, foliaceous, spreading, cernuous, 

 sub-linear, acuminate, broadest near base, sessile, half-clasping, 

 lowest 4£ inches long, 2 lines wide, upper 1 inch long and 1 line 

 wide. Flowers distant, lowest internode If inches, alternate, 

 somewhat sub-verticillate, axillary, (two together in lowest leafy 

 bract only, but separate,) with a small, coloured, broad, and 

 truncate membranaceous bracteole between pedicel and scape ; 

 raceme 6 inches long, 9-11 flowered ; pedicels f inch long, 

 slender, drooping, joiuted above the middle, lowest longest ; 

 perianth white, wholly and strictly reflexed and nodding (like 

 Cyclamen) ; segments 6, sub-convex, 2^-3 lines long, green at 

 bases ; three outer, oblong-ovate, obtuse and thickened at tips, 

 3-nerved ; three inner oblong, rumpled, sub-fimbriate above, 

 emarginate ; filaments white, much shorter than perianth, 

 lf-2 lines long, slender, naked, more than £rd length from base, 

 densely hairy above, but not close up to anther, hairs very short 

 at top, being gradually reduced in size upwards, large and 

 bushy at middle, patent, moniliform, largely clavate and com- 

 pound-branched ; anthers pale, small, about ^rd line long, 

 oblong, broadest at base, but not divergent, recurved at tips ; 

 style glabrous, erect, much longer than anthers, 2 lines long ; 

 stigma spreading, finely peuicillate ; ovarium green, glabrous, 

 sub-oblong-globose, flattened at tips. Capsule (ripe) bluntly 

 deltoid, 2 lines diameter, depressed, very membranous, green, 

 much rugose from seeds; seeds many (15), broadly-oblong, 

 turgid, slightly and irregularly sub-compressed, black, shining, 

 very minutely dotted ; funicle long, slender, adhering. 



Hub. Shaded sides of mountain streams, Seventy-mile 

 Bush, County of Waipawa ; 1870-83: W.C. 



Obs. I. This graceful little species is nearly allied to our 

 other small New Zealand species, A. candidum, Baoul, and also 

 to A. neo-coleJonicum, Baker,* differing, however, in several 

 characters. I have long known this plant, and always suspected 



* See " Journal Linnean Society," vol. xv., p. 352. 



