Olacinee. | FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND. 35 
coronatum ; ovulum 1 e apice column basilaris ovarii parieti adnate pendulum, umbilico brevi incrassato. 
Bacca ovoidea, carnosa, stigmate persistente trigono coronata; putamine trigono crustaceo superne infra 
apicem perforato. Semen pendulum; testa tenuissima, chalaza et raphe instructa; albumine carnoso; em- 
bryone parvo recto, axili; radicula anguste clavata, supera; cotyledonibus parvis, plano-convexis. Forst. 
Gen. 67. Prodr. p. 379. 
Small trees, branching freely from below, 40 feet high, with whitish bark and brittle wood; young branches 
and racemes pubescent. Leaves alternate, on short petioles, 1-3 inches long, rather membranous, ovate, obovate, 
or oblong, blunt, sinuate-repand or toothed, rarely entire, turning blackish in drying. Flowers white, fragrant, in 
terminal panicles, of which the males are the largest. Calyx a very minute cup, obscurely five-toothed, jointed on 
the top of the pedicel. Petals valvate, linear-oblong, 1-2 lines long; males largest, reflexed. Stamens alternate 
with the petals; those of the male flowers with flexuose filaments, longer than the petals; anthers linear-oblong, 
orange; those of the female shorter, without pollen. Ovariwm, in the male flower reduced to a conical central 
tubercle; in the female, linear-oblong, bluntly three-angled, crowned with three diverging sessile stigmata, one- 
celled, with one pendulous ovule at the top of the cell, hanging from a short swollen funiculus. Berries oval, black, 
shining, fleshy, with a dark purple juice, about 3 inch long, enclosing a trigonous hard nut, with three flat faces; a 
flat cord runs up one of the outer faces of this nut, and passes through a small round hole just below the apex ; 
by this cord the seed is suspended. Seed filling the cavity of the nut; albumen firm and fleshy, oily ; embryo small, 
axile at the upper end of the seed.—Only three species of this curious genus are known,—the present, one from 
Norfolk Island, and one from the West Coast of Australia; it is allied to Zcacina. (Name in honour of Thomas 
Pennant, an eminent Scottish naturalist.) 
1. Pennantia corymbosa, Forst. Prodr. A. Rich. Fl. Nov. Zeal. A. Cunn. Prodr. P. odorata, 
Raoul, Ann. Sc. Nat. Meristoides paniculata, Banks et Sol. Ic. et MSS. Tas. XII. 
Has. Northern and Middle Islands; mountainous woods; east coast, Banks and Solander, Colenso, 
etc. Akaroa, Raoul. Nelson, Bidwill. Nat. name, “ Kaikomako,” Colenso. 
A very graceful flowering tree, 20-30 feet high, which may be recognized by the characters given under the 
genus. The wood is considered the best for producing fire by friction. The economy of the ovary and fruit is 
extremely curious, as is often the case with Olacinee, and its nearly allied natural orders, Santalacee and Loranthacee, 
etc. The fruit of many species of these presents very anomalous appearances, from such important changes taking 
place in the youngest state of the ovarium, as obliteration of cavities and absorption of dissepiments, and even of 
unimpregnated ovules. This occurs when these organs are still so rudimentary as only to be recognized by careful 
examination of the ovary in fresh specimens, and from their very earliest period of growth. The three stigmata 
and trigonous form of the ovary indicate the germen to be composed of three carpellary leaves, and to have had three 
ovules at some period: these ovules are in allied plants suspended from the top of an erect column, arising from 
the bottom of the ovary, or are pendulous from the top of the cell. I can nowhere trace such a column in the fleshy 
ovary of Pennantia, which turns black when dry; but it is very evident in the fruit, as the cord passing up the out- 
side of the nut, fig. 12, 13, and 14 (a). The position of the two deficient ovules may possibly be recognized in 
thé ovary as the swelling of the umbilicus, fig. 5 and 7 (a). The development of a crustaceous nut round the seed, 
between it and the cord, is not so readily accounted for, and I can only suggest its being owing to the inner walls 
of the cavity of the ovarium gradually becoming thickened; and I offer, in corroboration of this opinion, the struc- 
ture of Marlea. In that genus the pendulous ovules are lodged in cavities of the fleshy ovary, which thus presents 
as many cells as ovules, the cells communicating over the top of the erect column from which the ovules are 
suspended. These cells harden round the ripening seeds, and a berry (with three nuts or a three-celled nut) is 
the result, each nut perforated at its upper inner angle, opposite the position of the apex of the column. It is not 
surprising that the central column of Pennantia should, in its rudimentary state, be included in the wall of the 
ovarium, nor that two cells should be absorbed, nor that two ovules should be wanting; but it is curious (though 
