306 PLANTS OF NEW ZEALAND 



Genus Pseudopanax. 



Shrubs or trees, with shining leaves, extremely variable in form at 

 different stages of the tree's growth. Flowers in umbels, panicles, or racemes. 

 Staminate flowers with 5 petals and 5 stamens. Pistillate flowers without 

 petals, ovary 5-celled. Fruit rounded, fleshy. (Name signifying a false Panax). 

 6 sp. 



Pseudopanax CPassifolium (The Thick-leaved Lancewood). 

 A spreading tree, 20 ft. -60 ft. in height ; trunk 10 in. -20 in. in diameter. 

 Leaves polymorphic. Flowers in terminal compound umbels. Stamens, 5 ; 

 styles 5 ; seeds 5. Fruit round. The leaves and wood of this tree send out an 

 unpleasant odour. The timber is used for fencing posts, sleepers, piles, etc. 

 Both islands ; Stewart Island. Var. unifoliolatum is common in the Auckland 

 district, but rare elsewhere. Fl. Feb. -April. Maori name Horoeka. 



Pseudopanax ferox (The Savage Lancewood). 

 A small tree, 15 ft. -26 ft. in height. Leaves of 3 forms. (1) Of seedlings,, 

 narrow, linear-lanceolate, acute, toothed, brownish. (2) Of unbranched shrubs, 

 12 in. -18 in. long, in. broad, the tips turned downwards towards the stem, very 

 thick and leathery ; roughly toothed ; teeth sharp, hooked. (3) Of mature trees,. 

 3 in. -5 in. long, } in.-| in. broad, linear-obovate, thick, rigid, pointed. Flowers 

 in terminal umbels ; staminate flowers in 6-10 racemes, with 4 petals and 4 

 stamens. Pistillate umbel compact, ovary 5-celled. Fruit oval, shining, larger 

 than in P. crassifolium, 1 -seeded. Both islands. Much rarer than the preceding 

 species. 



This is an endemic genus, distinguished chiefly by the 

 remarkable metamorphoses through which the foliage of the 

 species P. crassifolium and P. ferox passes. Many New 

 Zealand plants show strange vicissitudes in their leaf-develop- 

 ment, but in none are they stranger than in these. Yet, 

 curiously enough, no account of their minute structure has- 

 yet been published, though the leaves of many other species 

 have been microscopically examined. In no other genus, 

 perhaps, are the leaf forms so well worthy of the student's- 

 research ; so different are they in the juvenile, from the mature 

 stages, that, on several occasions, the earlier botanists put the 

 mature and immature forms of the same plant, in different 

 genera. P. crassifolium was discovered on Cook's first 

 voyage, and, in Dr. Solander's MS., the young form is 

 called Xerophylla longifolia, while the mature is termed 



