752 NAIADACEZ. | Zannechellia. 
cells dehiscing laterally, connective produced, apiculate. Female 
flower: Perianth short, cupular, hyaline. arpels 2-6, sessile ; 
styles long or short; stigma large, obliquely peltate, crenate ; 
ovule solitary, pendulous, orthotropous. Ripe carpels usually 3 
or 4, sessile or stalked, curved, oblong or oblong-reniform, slightly 
compressed, tubercled or crenate or smooth on the back, beaked by 
the projecting stvle. Seed pendulous ; testa membranous; embryo 
cylindric, the cotyledonary end bent into a short coil. 
An almost cosmopolitan genus of 4 or 5 closely allied species, probably all 
forms of one. 
1. Z. palustris, Linn. Sp. Plant. 969.— Stems very slender, 
much branched, leafy throughout, often forming dense masses, 
3-14 in. long. Leaves opposite or subwhorled, very slender, 4-3 in. 
long, filiform, flat. Flowers sessile or very shortly pedicelled. 
Fruiting carpels 3 or 4, about ;, in. long, stipitate or almost sessile, 
curved, smooth or very obscurely crenate on the back; styles from 
half to almost as long as the carpels.-- Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. 1. 
937; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 280; Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxviii. 
(1896) 498. 
NortH Isnanp: Auckland—Abundant in the Waikato River, from Taupiri 
downwards, also in Lakes Waikare, Whangape, and Waihi, Kirk! T. Ff. C. 
Hawke’s Bay—Tangoia Lagoon, Colenso! SourH Istanp: Otago—Waikouaiti 
Lagoon, Petrie ! December—May. 
The Waikato specimens have the carpels sessile or nearly so, and decidedly 
turgid; in those from Hawke’s Bay and Otago they are distinctly stipitate, 
and with longer styles. Both forms have the back of the carpel smooth or 
nearly so. 
5. LEPILASNA, J. Drummond. 
Very slender submerged water-plants ; stems filiform, branched. 
Leaves alternate or the floral ones opposite, filiform, sheathing at 
the base ; sheaths broad, stipular. Flowers minute, axillary, dice- 
cious or rarely moneecious, solitary within the dilated sheathing 
bases of a pair of floral leaves. Male flowers shortly pedicelled. 
Perianth very minute, of 3 hyaline scales. Anthers 2 or 3, united 
by their backs and forming a solid column resembling a single 
anther ; each anther 2-celled, dehiscing longitudinally. Female 
flowers sessile or shortly pedicellate. Perianth of 3 hyaline seg- 
ments longer or shorter than the carpels. Carpels 3, distinct, 
sessile or shortly stipitate, narrowed into a short or long style; 
stigma oblong or spathulate; ovule solitary, pendulous. Ripe 
carpels usually 3, oblong, coriaceous, indehiscent, tipped by the 
persistent style. Seed oblong; testa membranous ; embryo with a 
thick obtuse radicle and tapering involute cotyledonary end. 
A small genus of 4 species, 3 of which are Australian, one of them said to 
extend to New Zealand; the remaining one is endemic in New Zealand. In 
Engler’s ‘‘ Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien ’’ the genus is merged with the Mediter- 
ranean Althenia. 
