164 PLANTS OF NEW ZEALAND 



species in the lower orders of insects, to enable one to speak 

 definitely about them and their relationships to flowers. 



TJn isexua / fio/ver.s. 



Perhaps in no other part of the world is there such a large 

 percentage of unisexual flowers to be found, as in New 

 Zealand. Genera which are hermaphrodite elsewhere, are 

 often unisexual here. Out of 483 species examined Mr. G. 

 M. Thomson found 46 per cent. — a remarkably high 

 proportion — more or less unisexual."" Of the remaining 54 

 per cent., probably only a few are self-pollinated, although the 

 flowers are hermaphrodite. There is reason to believe that in 

 some few cases {e.g., the willow and the oak), the unisexual 

 condition is the primitive one ; but, in many of the New 

 Zealand plants, the presence of rudimentary organs, and the 

 hermaphroditism of closely allied forms elsewhere, prove that 

 suppression has taken place, and that we have here to do with 

 a secondary and not a primitive condition. 



Clematis indivisa (The Entire-leaved Clematis.) 



This is one of the best-known of the hush flowers. The leaves are thick 

 and glossy, and the flowers have no petals, the sepals acting both as protective 

 and attractive organs. Both islands. Fl. Sept. -Oct. Maori name Pua-wanangay 

 Pikiarero. 



Plants of C. indivisa, with their festoons of starry white 

 flowers, looped from tree to tree, light up with delicate beauty 

 the edges of the dark bush in the early spring. It is not to be 

 wondered at that the northern Maoris gave to this species the 

 name of Pua-w^ananga, i.e., the sacred or sanctified flower. Its. 

 feathery wreaths of seed are almost as beautiful as the flowers,. 

 each seed in the cluster bearing a long silky, silvery plume,, 

 which enables the wind to carry it to a distance. Pairs of 

 rudimentary leaves are found beneath each flower-stalk, and 

 these are believed to remain undeveloped, so that the flow^ei- 



*Trans. XIII., p. 248. 



