424 Transactions .—Botany . 



fleshy, as long as the lamina, constricted at junction with 

 blade, but gradually widening into a broad sheath, purple, 

 covered but not densely, except towards margin of sheath, 

 with cobwebby yellowish-white, almost white, hairs. Scape 

 often twice as long as the leaves, purple, densely covered with 

 long brown hairs ; braces not very numerous, usually 6 to 8, 

 linear, purple, sheathing with lower half, hairy as scape ; in- 

 volucral scales numerous, covered with shaggy yellowish hairs 

 above, except towards and on the membranous brown tip, 

 glabrous beneath. Heads about 2-7 cm. in diameter; ray- 

 florets 12 mm. X 2 mm., 4- to 6-nerved, nerves swollen at 

 bifid or trifid apex ; corolla-tube of. disc-florets hairy, especially 

 at base, marked with purple lines from junction of segments 

 to base. Achenes noc seen. 



Hab. Hill's Peak, Canterbury, at aliitude of 1,200 m.; 

 L. C. (1898). Flowers in early January. 



Seems closely allied to C. cordatifolia, Buchanan, but 

 differs in tomentum — one of the most constant characters in 

 Celmuia — and the usually tapering leaf-bases. Distinguished 

 from C. petiolata by its shaggy, not altogether adpressed 

 tomentum, which is yellow not white, and its wrinkled 

 upper leaf-surface. It is very probably a hybrid between 

 U. petiolata and G. svcctahilis. I have a very closely re- 

 lated form from Jack's Pass, Hanmer, which may be a local 

 variety of the above or a hybrid between C. traversii and 

 C. spectahilis. This hybrid theory seems the more likely, 

 since I have a most magnificent Gehnisui ivom. the last-named 

 locality which in appearance is midway between C. traversii 

 and G. coriacea. 



Abt. XXXV. — 0)1 Ligusticum trifoliatum, Hook. f. 

 Bv L. Cockayne. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 22nd February, 



1H99.] 



Regarding L. trifoliatum, Sir J. D. Hooker wrote : " A 

 curious little species, at once known by the few petioled 

 leaflets; it is probably 2-pinnate or 2-ternately pinnate. I 

 have only two specimens, and in the absence of fruit am not 

 certain of its genus " (" Handbook of the New Zealand Flora," 

 p. 97). The late Mr. T. Kirk, F.L.S., urged me repeatedly to 

 search for this plant, saying that it had never been found 

 since its original discovei-y by Haast. I made repeated search 

 in the habitats mentioned bv Haast — " watercourses bv the 



