20 



THE AET ALBUM OF NEW ZEALAND FLOEA. 



3. C. STYLOSA. 



A perennial 2-3 feet high. Leaves 3-5 inches long. Flowers rather small, 

 AAhite. Found at the Bay of Islands, and about Auckland. 



4. C. FASTIGIATA. 



A glabrous perennial, with a rootstock a span long, tapering, as thick as the 

 little finger, densely clothed with the recurved bases of the old leaves, a very singiilar 

 looking plant. Flowers very numerous, white. Found in the Middle Island at high 

 altitudes. 



GENUS V. 

 BEAYA {Sternberg.) The Braya, or Pachycladon. 



Generic Chabactee. — Alpine, densely tufted, perennial 

 herbs, with long tap roots, rosulate radical leaves, and scapes 

 bearing short few-flowered racemes, or corymbs. Flowers 

 white, pink, or purplish. Sepals short, equal. Petals obovate. 

 Stamens C. Pod short, thick, ovate or oblong ; valves convex. 



with a short costa, or keeled ; Septum entire, or open ; style 

 very short; Stigma capitate. Seeds in 1 or 2 series; funicles 

 \"ery short ; cotyledons incumhent. ^Jlandloot of Jfew Zea- 

 land Flora, p. 13. 



Description, etc. — An Arctic genus, also foimd, but rarely, in the loftiest Alps of 

 Europe, Northern Asia, and North and South America. 



1. BEAYA NOY.E ZELANDI.E {Hook., F.) The New Zealand Braya. 



Specific Chakacteh. — A very short depressed Alpine 

 herb, covered with stellate pubescence, root long, tap-shaped, 

 as thick as the finger, bearing one or several equally tliick, 

 erect or ascending cylindric branches, covered with scars of 

 old leaves, and surmounted by a head ot small imbricating 

 leaves that spread out horizontally. Leaves ^-\ in. long, 

 oblong, pinnatifidly lobed, narrowed into ilat thort petioles; 



those on the scapes with longer petioles, and a minute obovate 

 blade, which is digitately lobed at the top. Scapes or pe- 

 duncles very numerous, rising from the root below the leaves, 

 shoi'ter than these, and spreading horizontally, 3-5 flowered. 

 Flowers not seen. Pod J-! in. long, about half as broad, 

 laterally compressed ; septum incomplete. Seeds 3-5 in each 

 valve, obovoicl. — Sandboolc of INew Zealand Flora, p. 13. 



Description, etc.— Fig. 2, Plate No. 6.— The " NEW ZEALAND BRAYA."— 



This remarkable little Alpine plant is found in the debris of schist, on Mount Alta, in 

 the Wanaka Lake district, in exposed ridges not imder an altitude of 5000 feet, or in the 

 crevices of rocks, where it is often surrounded by snow. The progress of flowering and 

 seeding is very rapid in this plant, as the heat diiriug the day in sunshine at these high 

 altitudes is intense, producing a rapid growth Our plate depicts the plant with flower 

 and seed. The flowers are white, and are described by Mr. John Buchanan, F.L.S., 

 as I of an inch long. Sepals obovate, obtuse, petals longer than the sepals, upper half 

 round, tapering below to a narrow point. — " Alpine Flora," Vol. XIV., " Transactions 

 New Zealand Institute." It may be noted that for want of information a description of 

 the flowers of this plant is not given in the " Handbook." 



