Lobeliacee. | FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND. 157 
3-8 inches long, on slender petioles 3-5 inches long, ovate, acute, unequally sharply serrate, membranous, glabrous 
or slightly hairy. Racemes terminal, shorter than the leaves, six- to twelve-flowered. Peduncles more than an inch 
long, bracteolate at the base. Calya tube broadly obconic or turgid ; lobes five, subulate, equal, ¿inch long. Corolla 
slightly curved, long ($ to 2 inches), downy, pale blue, obscurely two-lipped, split to the base down the upper 
side; upper lip of two lacinise, one on each side of the fissure, each linear, sharp ; lower three-lobed, lobes spreading, 
oblong, sharp. Stamens exserted; anthers firmly united, pubescent, and covered with long hairs towards the tips. 
Style bifid, arms spreading. Berry globose, $ inch diameter, between fleshy and leathery, two-celled; cells many- 
seeded. Seeds globose, small, attached to broad peltate placente in the axis of the berry.— This fine plant was con- 
sidered to belong to Lobelia by Mr. Cunningham, from which genus its berried fruit removes it, as also from the 
division of that Natural Order to which Lobelia belongs, and places it with a curious group of berried congeners, 
inhabitants of the Pacific Islands; and it is hence an instance of the alliance of the Polynesian Flora with that of 
New Zealand. Ihave named it in honour of the Rey. W. Colenso, to whom I am so greatly indebted for investi- 
gating the botany of the Northern Island. 
1. Colensoa physaloides, Hook. fil. Lobelia, 4. Cunn. Prodr. DC. Prodr. Hook. Ic. Plant. t. 555 et 556. 
Has. Northern Island. Wangaroa and Matauri, R. Cunningham, etc.; North Cape, Dieffenbach. 
Nat. name, “Oru,” Cunn. 
Gen. II. PRATIA, Gaud. 
Calycis tubus ovatus obovatusve; lobis ovatis, superioribus paulo majoribus. Corolla subcampanulata, 
dorso fissa, 1-labiata; lobis eequilongis. Anthera 2, inferiores v. omnes apice setose. Stylus bifidus; lobis 
extus puberulis. Fructus baccatus, 2-locularis, polyspermus.— Herbze parva, repentes, glabra; succo agueo; 
ramis radicantibus. Folia alterna. Pedunculi solitarii, axillares, 1-flori. 
Small creeping herbs, with rooting branches and alternate leaves, smooth or slightly hairy. Peduncles axillary, 
solitary, one-flowered. Calyx tube ovate; lobes ovate, the upper rather the larger. Corolla bell-shaped, with a 
short tube split down the back to the base, and five rather spreading, equal, ovate lobes. Style with two short 
spreading stigmatic arms. Anthers all, or the two lower, with a few bristles at their tips. Berry turgid, two- 
celled, many-seeded.—This genus is confined to the temperate regions of the Southern Hemisphere as far as at 
present known, except the Indian Piddingtonia be included, as it should probably be. (Named in compliment to 
M. M. Prat-Bernon, a brother-officer of M. Gaudichaud’s in Freycinet's voyage.) 
1. Pratia angulata, Hook. fil.; glaberrima, ramis prostratis elongatis radicantibus, foliis breve petio- 
latis obovatis oblongis ovato-rotundatisve grosse sinuato-dentatis, pedunculis plerumque gracilibus elonga- 
tis ebracteolatis. 7. Antarct. p. 41. Lobelia angulata, Banks et Sol. MSS. et Ic. Forst. Prodr. A. Rich. 
Flora. L. angulata e£ L. littoralis, 4. Cunn. Prodr. DC. Prodr. v. T. p. 366. 
Var. a; foliis rotundatis sinuato-dentatis breve petiolatis, pedunculis elongatis. 
Var. 8 ; elongata, foliis obovatis repando-dentatis, pedunculis longissimis, calycis lobis subulatis. 
Var. y. arenaria; folis breve petiolatis ut in var. a, pedunculis folio brevioribus v. brevissimis. P. 
arenaria, 7. Antarct. p. 41. t. 29. 
Haz. Throughout the Islands, in damp places; abundant, Banks and Solander, etc. 
An exceedingly variable plant in the length of the stem (3-10 inches), distance between the leaves (4-14 inch), 
shape of these, rotundate to obovate, and their length (4-3 inch), in the length of their petiole, which never ex- 
ceeds a fourth of that of the leaf, depth and form of toothing and waving, and above all in the length of the 
peduncle, which is very short, with almost sessile flower and frait, or 6 inches long, erect and slender. In the ‘Flora 
Antarctica’ I made a new species, P. arenaria, from Lord Auckland’s Group, whose main character depended on 
its almost sessile flowers, but I find nearly as short peduncles in Dr. Lyall’s Dusky Bay specimens, gathered with 
others considerably longer. The corolla varies in length and is sometimes a little hairy. 
