Hypericum. | HYPERICINE:. 78 
Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 36; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 29; Benth. Fi. 
Austral. i. 182; Kirk, Students’ Fl. 67. Brathys Forsteri, Spach in 
Amn. Sc. Nat. ser. 2, v. 367; Raoul, Choix de Plantes, 47. 
Norra AnpD Sout Isnanps: From Whangaroa North (Petrie !) to the south 
of Otago, but rare and local to the north of Hawke’s Bay. Altitudinal range 
from sea-level to 2000 ft. Also found in Australia and Tasmania, and in New 
Caledonia. 
2. H. japonicum, Thunb. Fi. Jap. 295, t. 31.—A slender pro- 
cumbent or diffuse much or sparingly branched plant 2-6 in. high ; 
branches ascending at the tips. Leaves small, 4-4in., broadly 
oblong or oblong-ovate or obovate-oblong, obtuse, quite entire, often 
glaucous, marked with pellucid dots, sessile; margins usually flat. 
Flowers smaller than in H. graminewm, solitary or in few-flowered 
cymes ; pedicels short, slender. Sepals oblong or ovate, obtuse or 
subacute. Petals slightlv exceeding the sepals. Capsule broadly 
ovoid, small.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 37; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 29; 
Benth. Fl. Austral. i. 182; Kirk,. Students’ Fl. 67. H. pusillum, 
Choisy, Prodr. Hyp. 50; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 596. 
NortH anp SourH Istanps: Not uncommon in moist places from the 
North Cape to Otago. Altitudinal range from sea-level to over 3000 ft. 
Extends northwards through Australia and the Malay Archipelago to India, 
China, and Japan. Very closely allied to the preceding, but usually readily 
distinguished by its procumbent habit, broader flatter obtuse leaves and smaller 
fewer flowers. (The European H. hwmifwswm, Linn., has become naturalised 
in many places, and may easily be mistaken for H. japonicum. It is usually 
larger, with stiffer and more wiry stems and branches, larger and more pointed 
leaves which have a row of black glandular dots just inside the margin, and 
larger flowers with more pointed often glandular-toothed sepals.) 
Orper X. MALVACES5. 
Herbs, shrubs, or soft-wooded trees, usually with tough fibrous 
inner bark, young parts frequently clothed with stellate hairs. 
Leaves stipulate, alternate, often palmately veined, entire or lobed or 
rarely compound. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite or rarely uni- 
sexual, often furnished at the base with a kind of involucel com- 
posed of few or many free or connate bractlets. Sepals 5, valvate, 
more or less united into a lobed or entire calyx, persistent. Petals 
5, hypogynous, contorted in the bud. Stamens many, hypogynous ; 
filaments united into a tube surrounding the pistil usually called the 
staminal column ; anthers reniform, 1-celled. Ovary 2-many-celled, 
of 2 to many carpels whorled round a common axis; carpels either 
distinct or united; ovules 1 or more to each carpel, attached to the 
inner angle. Fruit either of dry indehiscent or dehiscent cocci, or 
a capsule with loculicidal dehiscence. Seeds reniform or obovoid ; 
albumen scanty or wanting; embryo often curved, cotyledons 
broad, foliaceous. 
A large tropical and subtropical order, less common in temperate regions, 
and not extending either far north or south. Genera about 60; species between 
