378 Transacttons.— Botany. 
Art. XXXVI.—Notes on Carmichelia, with Descriptions of new Species. 
By T. Kirk, F.L.S. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 13th February. 1884.] 
Plates XXX.-XXXIII. 
Tue genus Carmichalia comprises certain species which are tolerably con- 
stant in their vegetative characters, and can be identified in all states with 
little difficulty, but on the other hand it contains species of which the indi- 
viduals exhibit an amount of variation scarcely surpassed by any genus in 
our variable Flora. The habit of the plant may be lax or compact; the 
branches and branchlets may be glabrous or more or less pubescent ; they 
may be terete, plano-convex or much compressed, and when compressed 
may vary from one-twentieth to one-fourth of an inch in breadth; they 
may be leafless or foliaceous, while unifoliolate and pinnate leaves may be 
found on the same branch. The inflorescence may consist of two or three 
few-flowered fascicles, or of fascicles or short racemes crowded into false 
whorls, or of many-flowered lax racemes, and the pedicels may be glabrous, 
pubescent, or pilose. 
The most constant characters are afforded by the fruit which varies 
widely in the different species. In the typical form of the pod dehiscence is 
effected by the separation of the valves from the placenta, leaving the latter 
as a framework (replum) carrying the seeds, but in some species the replum 
itself splits down the middle, one-half being attached to each valve; in 
others one valve becomes partially or completely separated from the replum 
which remains attached to the opposite valve. The replum varies con- 
siderably in the different species, being least developed in C. crassicaulis. 
Dehiscence usually commences from the base, but not invariably. 
The form of the pod exhibits marked characters in the different 
species, and nearly always affords the safest characters for identification, 
however much the species may vary in its vegetative characteristics. 
With a few exceptions characters derived from the flowers are less satis- 
factory. 
I do not propose to consider the causes of variation in Carmichalia 
beyond recording the fact that in C. odorata, C. pilosa, and C. flagellifor- 
mis—the species in which it is most excessive—it is often caused by soil, 
situation, age of the plants, etc. 
In the following paper I purpose describing two new species, and sup- 
plying some omissions in the characters of those with which we are already 
acquainted, from descriptions in the “ Handbook of the New Zealand 
Flora" and elsewhere. 
