824 NOTES ON SOME PLANTS OF OTAGO, NEW ZEALAND. 
with a comparatively large, conspicuous, orange flower; has some- 
what the aspect of the British H. humifusum, L. Branches 25—3 in. 
high. Lower leaves oblong-ovate; upper ones lanceolate-oblong, as 
in gramineum. Leaf generally broader and more spreading from the 
branch than in gramineum: revolution of its margin not so common, 
though the tendency exists. Flowers in twos ; peduncles simple, very 
short or inconspieuous amid the terminalleaves. The plant is smaller 
in most of its parts than—without, however, any proper distinction from 
—gramineum, to which I do not hesitate to refer it. Not even as 
a specially named variety would I separate it, regarding it as I do as 
a mere small form or condition of gramineum. It is by the separation 
and naming of such forms or conditions that classification becomes 
burdened with an unnecessary and mischievous number of pseudo- 
cies | 
Genus IIT. PARSONSIĄ. 
Its species are “ Supplejacks " or “ Lawyers "—climbers on forest 
trees; and, especially when in flower, among the most handsome orna- 
ments of the New Zealand “ Bush." The genus resembles Rubus in the 
variability of leaf even on the same plant. According to my specimens 
. albiflora and P. rosea are very different plants (as to leaf and whole 
habit). P. rosea is not, however, in flower, so that I cannot properly 
compare them. I believe they will be found, like so many other New 
Zealand species, to be connected by passage-forms. 
l. P. albiflora, Raoul, (P. heterophylla, Fl. N. Z.,) Fast Taeri bush ; 
November, young, W. L. L. The “Kaiku” (or **Kai-ku") of the 
North Island Maori (ilinib. Buchanan recommends it for culti- 
vation in this country as a covering (a creeper) for bowers, after the 
manner of Jasmine. In flower, smell, and habit, it somewhat resem- 
bles the common garden Jasmine, whose representative it may be held 
to be in New Zealand. [ts fine, large, terminal panicle of white flowers 
renders it one of the handsomest “ Supplejacks * of Otago. In drying 
for the herbarium, all its leaves assume a brown or blackish-brown 
colour, blackest on the upper shining surface; the under side having 
a duller leathery aspect. The foliage then resembles that of some 
species of Metrosideros when dried, e.g. M. lucida. Corolla dries to a 
brownish-yellow ; lobes about as long as the tube. 
My plant is a stout woody shrub, ur in its branches and 
foliage Metrosideros lucida. Puberulence of stem, branches, and midrib 
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