Petrie. — On the Pollination of the Puriri. 409 



Art. XLIII. — On the Pollination of the Puriri (Vitex lucens, 



T. Kirk). 



By D. Petrie, M.A. 



[Read before the Auckland Institute, Mh July, 1904.] 



The puriri is a well-known beautiful and valuable tree that 

 grows throughout the lowland parts of the Auckland Province, 

 and extends as far south as Mahia Peninsula on the east coast 

 and Cape Egmont on the west. 



Its chief time of flowering is in the winter, though stray 

 flowers may be found at most seasons of the year, and trees may 

 always be found in full bloom during the months of May. June, 

 July, and August. The flowering season of single trees often 

 extends over two months or more, and it is no uncommon thing 

 to see full-grown fruit and young flowers on the same branch, 

 and even on the same panicle. 



The flowers grow in spreading flattened axillary panicles 

 among the upper or younger leaves. Those borne in a panicle 

 vary in number from four to twelve, and are supported on rather 

 slender but fairly rigid flower-stalks. The flowers are of fair 

 size, being about an inch in length and nearly an inch wide in 

 front. 



The calyx is short and cup-shaped. The corolla, which is 

 pink or more usually dull-red in colour, is tubular and irregular, 

 with a four-lobed limb. The upper lobe or lip is comparatively 

 short, slightly arched, and either entire or bifid. The lower lip 

 is much larger and broader, strongly deflexed, and trifid. 



The stamens, four in number, spring from the lower part 

 of the corolla-tube, and have long filaments. The bases of the 

 filaments and the parts of the corolla between their points of 

 insertion are densely clothed with a felted mass of long hairs 

 that completely blocks the tube of the corolla leading down to 

 the ovary. 



The pistil consists of a short subcorneal ovary, situated 

 below the level of the bases of the filaments, and of a long and 

 fairly stout polished style, terminating in two (rarelv in three) 

 short divergent style-branches. The stigmatic surfaces are con- 

 fined to the extreme tips of the style-branches, and are not larger 

 than the head of a pin. Where the style joins the ovary there is 

 a shallow constriction, and it is this groove that secretes most, if 

 not all, of the abundant nectar that bathes the ovary, and indeed 

 generally fills the entire space between it and the plug of hairs 

 that blocks the corolla-tube. 



