Cotenso.—On new Plants. 861 
short secondary peduncle at its base, springing axillary from a leaf, and 
trichotomously bearing three flowers nearly sessile or on very short pedicels, 
bi-bracteate, bracts long linear; pedicels on main rhachis short, under 1 line 
long, each having a pair of minute, scarious, punctate, and pilose brac- 
teoles at the base. 
Hab.: Forests, head of the Manawatu River, climbing lofty trees ; 1874-9. 
This species is pretty closely allied to M. colensoi, Hook., but differing 
from that species in its peculiar strictly drooping growth, in its decussate 
and densely pilose broader and coloured leaves, in its peculiar calyx lobes, 
and terminal panicles of white flowers. It is a beautiful plant in its native 
wilds, and will, no doubt, at some future day, become a favourite garden 
one, on account of its elegant pendulous habit. Its flowers are rather 
rarely produced, and are generally, including the calyces, gnawed by insects. 
I had to seek often, and to wait some years ere I could get perfect specimens. 
I consider it by far the most graceful of all our known New Zealand species 
of Metrosideros. 
METROSIDEROS SUBSIMILIS. 
A bushy diffuse climbing plant, with pale deciduous bark. 
Leaves opposite, somewhat distichous, petiolate, 7-9 lines long, 4—6 lines 
broad, broadly ovate and acute, sometimes broadly elliptic and mucronate, 
sub-coriaceous, minutely punctate beneath, 8 (sub 5) nerved, midrib and 
lateral nerves prominent, margin entire, slightly revolute and finely ciliated, 
the lowest pair on a branchlet always the smallest, and often orbicular; 
young leaves very finely pilose on upper surface and on midrib beneath; 
petioles and branchlets densely and finely pilose. Flowers horizontal, erect, 
whitish, small, under 6 lines long, generally 5-7-9 together, decussate, in 
short racemes or thyrsoid-like panicles, always lateral, and springing 
directly from old wood,—sometimes, however, a small corymb of three, and 
more rarely a solitary one appears ; calyx broadly campanulate, longer and 
broader than ovary, nerved, minutely pilose, with five (sometimes six) 
deltoid teeth, obtuse, persistent, minutely and regularly crenelled or sub- 
beaded on inner border of the rim; petals small, fugacious, under one line 
in diameter, orbicular, scarcely clawed, obscurely 3—5-veined, punctate, 
erose, or minutely jagged at top, limb faintly pinkish, and some with a 
slight tinge of red—particularly on the outside,—claw dark coloured; 
anthers small, orbicular ; filaments slender, simple, pure white, two lines long, 
flexuose, spreading, not numerous (15-20), deciduous ; style stout, subulate, 
erect, much longer than stamens, 4-5 lines long during flowering, afterwards 
6 lines long or more, persistent; stigma dilated ; ovary small, under one line 
diameter, globose, wholly adherent with base of calyx-tube, splitting loculi- 
sally into three valves, the terminal or central ovary sometimes bearing a 
41 
