390 Transactions. — Botany. 



like the large ones. Heads small, in large loose-spreading 

 corymbs, Peduncles and pedicels very slender, filiform, 

 rather dry, iin.-lin. long, each having 2-5 scattered bract- 

 eoles. Involucre small, narrow-cylindric, 3 lines long, nearly 

 as long as the florets, green, with a few small bracteoles 

 at base ; scales 9, narrow subulate, 3-nerved, with white 

 scarious margins, their tips obtuse and slightly coloured, 

 ciliolate. Florets sub 20, tubular, very slender, capillary, 

 slightly campanulate at apex and dilated at base, greyish- 

 green, glabrous, tips 3-fid, lobes laciniate, slightly tinged with 

 yellow; stigmas spreading recurved subcylindrical scaberulous, 

 tips thickened, dark-coloured. Achene linear, ^in. long, 

 slightly grooved, scabrid on angles, ends obtuse, pale-brown, 

 apex with a ring of very minute white hairs. Pappus 

 slender, erect, white, shining, scabrid, tips acute, longer than 

 florets. Eeceptacle raised, pustulate, slightly ridgy with 

 minute toothed scales. 



Hab. In deep forests near Dannevirke, County of Waipawa ; 

 March, 1894 ; also near Woodville, 1890: W.O. 



Obs. This fine and striking herb differs considerably from 

 all our endemic species of this genus. I had met with one 

 small plant of it, about 1ft. high, late in the autumn of 1890, 

 near Woodville, which was long past flowering, and only re- 

 tained 2-3 dry and withered involucres without fruit ; and 

 not having seen it since, though diligently sought, had all 

 but given it up, when, most unexpectedly, three years after I 

 came on some very fine specimens in the forest. Unfortunately 

 their larger leaves were all but quite devoured by small larva? 

 (apparently of some moth) that were feeding on them in great 

 numbers. 



2. S. distiiictus, sp. nov. 



Shrub 5ft. -6ft. high ; branchlets (specimens) slender, erect, 

 simple, 8in.-10in. long, 1 line diameter, much-ribbed-striate, 

 l'afy at tops, bare below. Leaves rather close, opposite, 

 petiolate, lfin.-2in. long, 9-10 lines wide, narrow-oblong-ob- 

 tuse, slightly tapering, deeply crenate-dentate, the toothed 

 portion peculiar in shape, and in appearance reminding one— 

 prima facie — of the merlons of a battlement, each being 

 1-2-3-toothed, teeth hard and pointed, and often with a 

 small tooth in the crenate hollow, glabrous and finely veined 

 above, but closely covered below with whitish-grey scurf 

 that becomes brown in age ; venules very numerous, 

 compoundly anastomosing; midrib prominent below; peti- 

 oles slender, 5-10 lines long, striate, channelled above, 

 slightly pubescent-scurfy. Plowers terminal in small rather 

 loose leafy corymbs ; the extreme peduncles very slender 

 (almost capillary), ^in.-fin. long, each bearing a single 



