430 MYRSINEZ. [ Myrsine. 
Orper XLY. MYRSINEA. 
Trees or shrubs, usually glabrous. Leaves alternate, undivided, 
generally provided with pellucid glandular dots; stipules wanting. 
Flowers regular, hermaphrodite or polygamous. Calyx usually 
inferior, 4—6-lobed or -partite, segments often ciliate. Corolla 
gamopetalous (rarely polypetalous), segments (or petals) 4-6, con- 
torted or imbricated. Stamens opposite to the corolla-lobes and 
equal to them in number, free or adnate to the tube. Anthers 
oblong, 2-celled, sometimes coherent. Ovary usually superior, 
l-celled ; style single, stigma generally capitate; ovules few or 
many, inserted on a free central placenta. Fruit a one- to several- 
seeded drupe or berry. Seeds roundish or angular; albumen 
copious, sometimes pitted or ruminate; embryo usually trans- 
verse. 
An order of considerable size (according to the most recent enumeration 
including over 30 genera and 900 species), widely spread over the warm regions 
of the globe, rare or absent in temperate climates, except in New Zealand. 
Economic properties unimportant. The single genus found in New Zealand has 
a wide range in the tropics of both hemispheres. 
1. MYRSING, Linn. 
Small trees or shrubs. Leaves coriaceous, entire or rarely 
toothed. Flowers small, polygamous or often dicecious, in sessile 
or stalked axillary fascicles or umbels or sometimes solitary ; 
usually springing trom the nodes on the old wood below the leaves. 
Calyx small, 4-5-fid, persistent. Corolla 4—5-partite or of 4-5 distinet 
petals ; segments imbricate or rarely valvate, spreading or recurved. 
Stamens 4—5, inserted near the base of the corolla, filaments short. 
Ovary superior, l-celled; style short or altogether absent; stigma 
capitate or lobed or fringed ; ovules few, sunk in a fleshy placenta. 
Fruit small, globose, drupaceous, dry or fleshy. Seed solitary, 
usually surrounded by the remains of the placenta ; albumen horny ; 
embryo elongated, often curved. 
Taken in the sense of the ‘‘ Genera Plantarum’”’ this is a genus of from 120 
to 150 species, most of them natives of tropical Asia, Africa, and America; with 
comparatively few species in extra-tropical Asia and Africa, in Australia, 
New Zealand, and Polynesia; the 8 species found in New Zealand being all 
endemic. In Carl Mez’s recent monograph of the order, published in ‘‘ Das 
Pflanzenreich,’’ the New Zealand forms are referred to the genera Swttonia 
and Rapanea, the first comprising those with absolutely free petals, the second 
those in which the corolla is more or less gamopetalous. But in the three 
species which Mez places in Rapanea one has the petals absolutely free, and in 
the two others they only cohere very slightly at the base. Without expressing 
any opinion as to how far it may be advisable to dismember the original genus 
Myrsine, I certainly think that the New Zealand species form a natural group, 
and are best kept together. If it is necessary to separate them from Myrsine, 
the characters of Swttonia should be enlarged so as to take in the whole of 
them. 
