Carmichelia. | LEGUMINOSAS. 109 
2, CARMICH ALIA, R. Br. 
Erect or depressed shrubs, some species attaining a height of 
6-10 ft., others reduced to broad matted patches hardly rising more 
than an inch or two above the ground. Branchlets flattened or 
terete, grooved or striate, green. Leaves often absent, except in 
seedlings; when present deciduous after the flowers have fallen, 
1-foliolate or pinnately 3-5-foliolate. Flowers small, in lateral 
racemes springing from notches on the edges of the branchlets, 
rarely solitary. Calyx campanulate or cup-shaped, 5-toothed. 
Standard orbicular, usually reflexed, contracted into a short claw. 
Wings more or less falcate, oblong, obtuse, auricled towards the 
base. Keel oblong, incurved, obtuse, shorter or longer than the 
standard. Upper stamen free, the others connate into a sheath. 
Ovary narrowed into a slender beardless style; stigma minute, 
terminal; ovulesnumerous. Pod small, coriaceous, narrow-oblong to 
almost orbicular, straight or oblique, compressed or turgid, narrowed 
into a short or long subulate beak; valves with the edges thickened 
and consolidated, forming a kind of framework called thereplum, from 
which the faces of the valves come away; or in a few species the 
valves remain attached to the replum and the pod is indehiscent. 
Seeds 1-12, reniform or oblong; radicle usually with a double fold. 
A very remarkable genus, confined to New Zealand, with the exception of 
one species found in Lord Howe Island. Its habit is peculiar, most of the 
species being leafless or nearly so when mature, the green flattened or terete 
branchlets (cladodes) performing the functions of true leaves. The structure of 
the pod is most exceptional, the margins of the valves and placentas being 
thickened and consolidated into a framework (replum), to which the seeds are 
attached. In dehiscence the faces of the valves either come away altogether 
from the replum, which may persist for a long time with the seeds hanging from 
it, or the valves may separate at one side or end, remaining attached at the 
other. In the four species constituting the section Huttonella the valves do not 
usually separate from the replum, which is frequently incomplete, and the pod 
is thus indehiscent. Had this character been constant, Hwttonella might well 
have been kept as a distinct genus, as proposed by Kirk. But fruiting specimens 
of C. juncea in Mr. Colenso’s herbarium show that the valves occasionally 
separate from the replum in that species, and Mr. Petrie informs me that the 
same thing occurs in his C. compacta. 
The discrimination of the species is probably more difficult in Carmichelia 
than in any other genus in the New Zealand flora, and the student will find it 
almost impossible to name his specimens with accuracy until he has collected 
most of the species and become familiar with their characters. In most cases 
. characters based upon the vegetative organs are by themselves useless. The 
leaves, when they can be examined, are singularly uniform; and the branchlets 
are not only highly variable in width, but may be flattened in spring and nearly 
terete in autumn. The flowers vary in size and colour in the different species, 
but present no important structural modifications. The pods afford the most 
trustworthy characters, and in several cases are alone quite sufficient for the 
identification of the species. The following analysis of the species isin many 
respects imperfect, and will doubtless require considerable modification. <A 
really comprehensive and accurate account cannot be drawn up until the species 
have been carefully studied in the field at different seasons of the year, and in 
all stages of growth. It is specially important, in order to form a safe basis for 
future work, that flowering and fruiting specimens should be taken from the 
same plant. 
