Buchanan. — Botanical Notes. 255 



Art. XXX. — Botanical Notes. 

 By J. Buchanan, F.L.S. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 18th February, 1888.] 



Plates XII. aud XIII. 

 Melicope parvula, n. s. 



A small glabrous shrub, 5-6 feet high. Branches very 

 slender. Leaves opposite, in distant pairs, i inch long, obovate, 

 and obscurely crenate ; peduncles J^th inch long. Flowers in 

 minute clusters, in the axils of the leaves. 



This is a distinct though diminutive species of the genus 

 Melicope, and its having been found growing along with the larger 

 species of that genus points to the probability of this new plant 

 being the natural result of the altered conditions of one seed, 

 and not through a long derivative process of ancestry. 



The species of Melicope in New Zealand are remarkable as 

 presenting a gradually diminishing size, from the largest-leaved 

 species, M. ternata, to the present minute species, M. parvula, 

 which barely leaves room for one smaller. Near Dunedin. 



Ranunculus tenuis, n. s. Plate XII. 



A tall, slender, glabrous plant, 10-12 inches high. Boot- 

 stalk J-inch diameter. Leaves all radical, ovate-oblong in out- 

 line, tripinnatisect, segments linear or ovate, primary divisions 

 in two opposite pairs. Scape slender, 6-10 inches long, leafless. 

 Flower 1\ inch diameter, white or pale yellow. Petals 5-10, 

 obovate or linear-obovate ; achenes in globose heads ; styles 

 black, subulate. 



East Taieri Hills, Otago; and Masterton, Wellington. 



This species is probably common, but escapes observation 

 from its resemblance to other species. 



Notothlaspi hookeri, n. s. Plate XIII. 



A small glabrous plant, with numerous flowering branches, 

 which spring from the centre of a group of leaves. Boot stout, 

 fusiform. Branches 4-5 inches long, very narrow. Leaves sessile 

 on the ground, densely crowded in the form of a rosette, linear- 

 oblong, crenate near the tips. Leaves of the flowering branches 

 small, \ inch long, linear, acute. Pods \ inch long, very narrow. 



Mountains near Lake Wanaka and Lake Ohau. 



This beautiful plant is rare, and the accompanying sketch is 

 taken from an indifferent specimen. 



