366 Transactions. 



plants were less common than the female, and oi less vigorous growth. 

 Not a single capsule was to be found on any of the males, while on the 

 females they were plentiful, and just ripe enough for the valves to be 

 opening and exposing the numerous rather large pitchy seeds. The male 

 inflorescence was terminal on the branchlets, and consisted of an umbel of 

 10 or usually fewer (6-8) flowers on long very slender peduncles. These 

 flowers had every appearance of being hermaphrodite, the pistils being- 

 well developed and equalling the stamens in height, while the stigmas were 

 more or less coated with pollen. But as no capsules occurred on any of 

 the male plants it is clear that fertilization did not take place. The 

 pistils are probably sterile to the pollen of their own flowers ; but more 

 extended observations are needed before this conclusion can be considered 

 established. In the female plants the inflorescence was reduced to a 

 single terminal flower, rather smaller than the male ones, seated on a short 

 stouter peduncle about as long as the flowers. Here the pistil hardly 

 differs from that present in the males. The stamens are much shorter, 

 with anthers greatly aborted, and destitute of pollen. As already noted, 

 these plants produced a capsule at the end of almost every branchlet. In 

 every case the capsule was two-valved, and this is the case in the consider- 

 able number of dried fruiting specimens in my herbarium, gathered from 

 various widely-scattered stations in the North Island. Mr. H. B. Matthews, 

 a very careful observer, has examined many plants bearing capsules, and 

 in one case only has he seen a three-valved one, and in it the extra valve 

 was much smaller than the other two. Both Mr. Kirk and Mr. Cheeseman 

 give the number of the valves as three, but there can be no doubt that 

 two is the normal number. Though the Kawau plants all showed solitary 

 terminal female flowers, binate flowers are sometimes met with. Mr. H. 

 Carse has sent me one or two such flowers, and I have one fruiting 

 specimen with binate immature capsules. 



The facts set forth above seem to show that the flowers of this 

 Pitlosporum are not truly polygamous. The conclusion that the plants 

 are never truly terrestrial seems also devoid of warrant, for the great 

 majority of the plants seen at Kawau grew in clay soil, though certainly 

 close to a rocky shore. 



2. Notospartium glabrescens sp. nov. (Plate LVII, fig. 1.) 



Arbor subhumilis ramosus N. Carmichaeliae Hk. f. similis ; differt truncis 

 crassioribus ; rhachide pedicellis et calyce glabris ; floribus paullo majoribus 

 purpureis ; leguminibus multo crassioribus, 15-25 mm. longis ^ 4 mm. 

 latis, subteretibus oblongis ^ coriaceis subacutis, breviter apiculatis, haud 

 torulosis ; seminibus subreniformibus haud complanatis, 2 mm. longis 

 1-75 mm. latis, rubris, punctibus atris ^ maculatis. 



A small round-headed leafless tree 15-30 ft. (4-5-9 m.) high, usually 

 with several trunks up to 8 in. (2 dcm.) in diameter springing from the 

 ground, in habit not unlike a weeping-willow, the lower branches and 

 branchlets more or less pendulous, the upper erect or ascending ; twigs 

 flattened striate, often closely placed on the branchlets ; stems, branches, 

 and older branchlets terete. 



Inflorescence usually erect or ascending, springing from the upper nodes 

 of the twigs ; rhachis glabrous, 4-7-5 cm. long, usually many-flowered ; 

 flowers like those of N. Carmichaeliae but somewhat larger and purplish 

 in colour ; pedicels glabrous, ^ 8 mm. long, generally with two minute 



