626 BALANOPHORESS. | Dactylanthus. 
bricate ovate or oblong brownish scales, the upper of which are 
larger and more closely placed, surrounding the spadices. Spadices 
numerous at the ends of the peduncles, slender, erect, cylindrical or 
slightly fusiform. Flowers very minute, densely packed, moncecious 
or dicecious. Male flowers: Perianth wanting or of 2 minute subu- 
late processes. Stamens 1 or 2; filaments very short; anthers 
didymous, 2-celled. Female flowers: Perianth adnate to the 
ovary; limb of 2 or 3 erect subulate segments. Ovary stipitate, 
ovoid-oblong, 1-celled; style long, filiform ; stigma terminal; oyule 
solitary, apparently pendulous. Fruit minute, crustaceous. 
A very distinct monotypic genus, not closely allied to any other, confined to. 
New Zealand. 
1. D. Taylori, Hook. f. in Trans. Linn. Soc. xxii. (1859) 425, t. 75. 
—Rhizome stout, varying in size according to the age of the plant, 
1-12 in. diam. or more. Flowering-stems 2-6 in. high, $1 in. diam., 
fleshy when young. Scales from + to din. long at the base of the 
peduncle, larger above, frequently lin. Spadices almost concealed 
by the upper scales, 10-30 together or more, #-l4in. long. Flowers 
rather loosely placed towards the base of the spadix, very densely 
packed elsewhere.—Handb. N.Z. Fl. 255; Kirk m Trans. N.Z. 
Inst. xxvii. (1896) 498. 
NorrH Isuanp: Auckland—Plateau between Hokianga and the Northern 
Wairoa, P. Bedlington ! from Port Charles to Cape Colville, H. Nairn! Thames 
goldfields, Kirk ; East Cape district, H. Hill! Opepe (near Lake Taupo), H. 
Hill! T. F.C. Hawke’s Bay—Tarawera and Nuhaka, A. Hamilton ; Hawkston, 
F. Hutchinson! Taranaki—W. HW. Skinner. Wellington—Waitotara, J. R. 
Annabell! Upper Rangitikei, J. P. Marshall; Upper Wanganui, Rev. R. 
Taylor, H. C. Field.  Sea-level to 3500ft. Pwa-reinga. February—Mar ch. 
Although I have seen a large number of specimens of this singular plant, 
few of them are in a satisfactory state, and the structure of both flowers and 
fruit should be worked out anew from fresh examples. Hooker describes the 
flowers as dicecious, but Mr. Hill assures me that both male and female 
peduncles frequently arise from the same rhizome. On the other hand, Mr. F. 
Hutchinson writes that the seeming mixture of sexes is due to the almost com- 
plete fusion of separate rhizomes growing close together. I possess a peduncle 
in which the lower flowers of all the spadices are female, and the upper ones. 
male; but this is probably an uncommon variation. Some observers have 
doubted the invariable parasitism of the plant, but all the rhizomes I have seen 
are organically connected with the root on which they were growing, although 
the point of attachment is sometimes small, the rhizome wrapping over and 
enclosing the root, but remaining free from it for a considerable distance. The 
host is usually Schefflera digitata; but Panax arboreum, Myrsine Urviilei, 
Pittosporum, and Fagus are all frequently attacked. 
OrpER LXXV. KBUPHORBIACEZ. 
Herbs or shrubs or trees of exceedingly various habit ; juice milky, 
acrid. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, often stipulate. Flowers 
usually small, unisexual (in Huphorbia reduced to single naked 
stamens surrounding a solitary pistil and enclosed within a calyx- 
