MYRTACE.E. 



319 



Metrosidcros tomentosa. 



Fig. 297. Flower (J). Fig. 298. Long. sect, of flower 



elongate-cuneiform or dilated on one side to a wing. Natives of 

 Oceania, from Australia to the north of the Indian archipelago, 

 abundant in southern Asia and New Caledonia, Tristanla has alter- 

 nate or, more rarely, opposite leaves, and flowers in axillary more or 

 less ramified and compound cymes. 



Metrosideros (fig. 297, 298) lias, like the following genera, free 

 exserted stamens in- 

 serted in the periphery 

 of the receptacular 

 orifice. It has been 

 observed in the warm 



regions of south-east- 

 ern Asia and Oceania, 

 from Malaya to New 

 Zealand and as far as 

 the Cape of Good Hope 

 and in south-western 

 America. The placen- 

 ta consists of two ver- 

 tical lobes, thick and 



elongate, covered with ovules. It becomes salient, in the form of a 

 short horizontal or ascending club, in M. stipulacea, of which has 

 been made the Chilian genus Tepualia, where it bears a small number 

 of ascending ovules, and in some Oceanic species, as M. ciliata, 

 paradoxa, chrysantha, etc. , where the ovules are more numerous and, 

 more frequently still, inserted over the entire surface of a shield-like 

 dilatation of its free extremity. They have served as type of the 

 genus Xanthostemon and have, nearly always, alternate leaves, whilst 

 the Metrosideros proper have generally opposite leaves. The calyx 

 valvate or slightly imbricate, is ordinarily regular in the true Metro- 

 sideros, often a little irregular in Xanthostemon. In a species of which 

 the genus Pleurocalyptus has been made, the summit separates irregu- 

 larly on one side at the time of blooming and rises like a small unequal 

 lid. These plants cannot, in our opinion, form distinct genera, and 

 we shall consider them only as sections of Metrosideros. The same 

 will be the case, notwithstanding its cymes contracted to a peduncu- 

 late head, with M. glomulifera, distinguished under the generic name 

 of Syncarpia, whilst among Eucalyptus, we shall also find a few 

 species presenting this same capitular arrangement of flowers and 



