386 Transactions. — Botany. 



Genus Sagina, Linn. 

 1. S. truncata, sp. uov. 



Plant small, perennial, tufted, grass-green, lin.-l^in. high ; 

 branches 3in.-5in. long, slender, procumbent, creeping, root- 

 ing at nodes; leaves — of tufts, numerous, very close, sub- 

 erect and spreading, linear aciculate, 9 lines long, scarcely £ 

 line wide ; of branches, much shorter, 5-7 lines long, sub- 

 fasciculate, 5-8 together at nodes, subsecund, the outer pair 

 connate, 5-8 lines apart on stems. Perianth 1 line long ; 

 sepals 4, oblong-ovate, obtuse, concave, equal, green ; petals 4, 

 often 0, very short, oblong obtuse, subhyaline, alternate with 

 sepals ; stamens 4, opposite sepals, slender, capillary, erect, 

 at first longer than capsule ; anthers orbicular, white. Styles 4, 

 short ; stigmas long, recurved, roughish subpenicillate, hairs 

 (under lens) knobbed. Capsule suborbicular, longer than 

 sepals, tip produced, sub-4-angled, opening by 4 valves, their 

 tips very truncate ; pale-green at first, whitish when ripe. 

 Seeds numerous, pear-shaped, brown, roughish. 



Hab. On Mount Tongariro, County of East Taupo ; 1893 : 

 Mr. H. Hill. 



Obs. I. This species certainly has close affinity with S. 

 procumbcns , Linn., which in some characters it resembles 

 {prima facie), an Australian and Eritish plant; differing, how- 

 ever, in its leaves being much more numerous, fascicled 5-8 

 together at nodes (in that species only in pairs), and in their 

 being aciculate, and subsecund on branches ; in its flowers 

 being always erect, not nodding, and mostly terminal; its 

 petals, when present, very minute, smaller and of a different 

 shape and structure ; in the form of its capsule ; and in the 

 tips of the valves being very truncate, almost emarginate. 

 I have closely examined it (living specimens), comparing 

 it with drawings and dissections given by Sowerby and by 

 Hooker, and descriptions by them and by Bentham (Austra- 

 lian specimens), and note the differential characters. 



II. This little plant has almost a history. Mr. Hill 

 brought it (possibly unnoticed) in a turf-like lump of earth 

 with other very small plants ; these were all crushed, 

 withered, and apparently dead through long and close keep- 

 ing and rough carriage, but I set them in a flower-pot, and 

 last summer this one flowered, but the flowers were all eaten 

 up by snails and slugs in one night before they were fully 

 developed ; so I had to w r ait till December in this year (1894), 

 and the plant has flowered plentifully. In not more than 1 in 

 10 perianths have I found any petals. 



[This genus, and the one preceding it, Ccrastium, are not 

 found in the " Handbook of the New Zealand Flora," but they 

 both belong to this order, and are closely allied to Colobanthus.] 



