144 A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 



odour (appropriately called Coprosuia foetidissima) is 

 popularly known as stinkwood. Another, with narrow 

 small elongated leaves and bright yellow wood, is the 

 mika-mika ; while still another, common on dry banks, 

 has striped blue and whitish fruit. 



All these plants have certain characteristic features 

 The flowers are dioecious that is, one plant bears stamin 

 ate or male flowers only, the other pistillate or female] 

 These flowers are very small, greenish-grey in colour, so 



Co/>rosma Cunninghami in fruit. 



that they are very difficult to see, and they are absolutely 

 destitute of nectar. The staminate flowers are produced in 

 immense numbers ; they have each four anthers hanging 

 out of the tiny corolla cups on long slender filaments, so 

 that they are easily shaken by the slightest breath of wind, 

 and when so disturbed a cloud of extremely fine dry and 

 dusty pollen is shaken out of them. The pistillate flowers 

 are usually fewer in number and are produced closer to the 

 branches. The most curious feature about them is the 

 relatively large size of their stigmas, which are from eight 



