394 Transactions. — botany. 



lamina marked with numerous minute scales and with a few 

 straggling long twisted hairs ; under-surface of lamina with 

 stout midrib and indistinct veins, more hairy than upper 

 surface ; petioles very stout, sheathing and connate at base, 

 brownish-green, pilose. 



2nd leaf rounded at base, more toothed than 1st leaf. 



3rd, 4th, and 5th leaves often more narrow than the 1st 

 and 2nd, obovate or oblong, with toothing less coarse and 

 apices of teeth thickened, lamina sometimes tapering at base 

 into the petiole , petiole as long or nearly twice as long as 

 lamina, channelled above, sheathing beneath. 



Stem (in plants with five leaves, the largest examined) 

 very short, thick and fleshy, sometimes with internodes 

 almost suppressed, giving off adventitious roots, which first 

 appear as crimson protruberances, hairy as leaves. 



Further development not yet observed. 



The material from which the above was drawn up was not 

 good, and so the description may not be strictly accurate; 

 also, details of interest may have been left out. It is possible 

 the earliest leaves may sometimes be much narrower and less 

 toothed than the one figured. The species grows most lux- 

 uriantly on banks of sluggish streams in mountainous dis- 

 tricts, also on wet banks or on rock in the drip of water. The 

 young plants examined had extensive colonies of Nostoc in the 

 parenchyma of the stem just at the lower-leaf bases.* Be- 

 tween the adult and juvenile forms there seem to be no very 

 great differences. 



No. 416. Hymenanthera dentata, E. Br., var. angustifolia, 



Benth. Plate XXXIII. , figs. 44-47. 



Seed collected at Kingston, Lake Wakatipu. I am not 

 sure of the correctness of my identification, not having seen 

 the type specimens in Kirk's herbarium. It is, however, one 

 of the forms called by Hooker, in the " Handbook of the New 

 Zealand Flora," H. crassifolia, and it is also the plant under 

 that name in Petrie's "List of Otago Plants" (Trans. N.Z. 

 Inst., vol. xxviii., p. 543). 



Description of Seedling. 



Eoot long, descending deeply, thick, with many lateral 

 rootlets. 



Hypocotyle : One half subterranean, very fleshy at first, 

 then woody, pale-coloured, finally pinkish, often bent, terete, 

 glabrous. 



* I am indebted to Dr. K. Goebel for showing me Nostoc in G. monoica, 

 and so calling attention to the fact tliat New Zealand Gunncra, as well 

 as South American, possess Nostoc colonies. 



