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A NEW CHENOPODIUM FKOM NEW ZEALAND. 

 By Thomas Kiek, F.L.S. 



The remarkable plant which forms the subject of this paper 

 has for many years been known to occur in one or two isolated 

 localities in New Zealand, having been originally discovered by 

 Mr. J. Buchanan in 1868. In the absence of female flowers it was 

 doubtfully referred to C. triandrum Forst., or 0. pusilla Hook. f. 

 Kecently I have had the pleasure of discovering female flowers, 

 and find that it differs from all known Australian species in its 

 monoecious character, and so far as I am aware from all other 

 species in the staminate and pistillate flowers alike being invariably 

 solitary. 



It usually occurs in situations where it is exposed to the 

 influence of the sea spray, and although plentiful in each of its 

 habitats, the habitats extend over a very small area ; but to both 

 these peculiarities there is a notable exception which deserves 

 special mention. About eight or nine years ago I received from 

 Mr. D. Petrie specimens collected at an elevation of 1800 feet, on 

 the Maniototo Plains, Otago, about eighty miles from the sea, and 

 recently had the pleasure of visiting that locality, when I found 

 the plant growing in vast abundance on a bed of whitish clay, 

 strongly impregnated with saline matter and extending for miles, 

 although with occasional breaks : wherever this bed was exposed 

 the Chenopodium was most abundant, together with other plants 

 usually restricted to littoral situations. 



This species forms depressed whitish-gray patches, easily 

 recognised at a considerable distance owing to the mealy to- 

 mentum with which the plant is covered ; it is excessively 

 branched, the branches being stiff and wiry, usually appressed to 

 the ground. The flowers are extremely minute ; the female being 

 less than half the size of the male are necessarily inconspicuous, 

 but this is not the sole cause of their having escaped notice so long. 

 The female perianth produced is near the base of the branchlets, and 

 as it is of the same consistence and appearance as the farinose 

 leaves, it closely resembles the apex of an impoverished shoot 

 springing from the axil of a leaf, and its true nature is only shown 

 by the short fragile stigmas, which may be easily overlooked, even 

 by a good observer. All traces of the stigmas disappear in badly 

 dried specimens, and it is not an easy matter to detect the female 

 flowers on good specimens, even when they are freely developed. The 

 yellow anthers of the male flowers, which are situate near the tips 

 of the branches, attract attention on a cursory examination. 



It affords me great pleasure to connect the name of its original 

 discoverer, Mr. J. Buchanan, F.L.S. , with this interesting species. 



Chenopodium Buchananii, sp. n. — An annual depressed 

 monoecious herb, clothed with farinose tomentum in all its parts ; 

 prostrate or rarely suberect, 1-3 m. high, excessively branched, 

 branches wiry. Leaves opposite or alternate, i to y% iu. long, entire, 

 ovate, ovate-oblong, or nearly orbicular. Flowers mmute, axillary. 



