252 Transactions.— Botany. 
Hab. Epiphytical on high trees in forests, Seventy-mile Bush, between 
Norsewood and Danneverke, County of Waipawa; 1884: W.0. Flowering 
in January. 
Obs. A very peculiar, fine and distinct species; of which, from its 
growing so very high up in the trees, it is difficult to obtain good 
specimens. 
2. Astelia albicans, sp. nov. 
Leaves linear-acuminate, 1 foot 8 inches to 2 feet 6 inches long, $ inch 
wide at broadest part, tips much drawn out, obtuse and hairy, drooping, 
stout, glabrous and green above, closely appressed with short white hairs 
below mixed with minute dark green dots, sub-8-nerved, edges ciliate, 
slightly keeled, of à blackish eolour for about three inches from base; base 
thick, dilated, 14 inches wide, satiny within and densely shaggy on outside 
with long white hairs. Male, seape flexuous, erect or slightly cernuous, 4 
inches long, very stout, obtusely triquetrous, densely silky ; panicle short, 
stout, 6-8 inches long, composed of 6 stout short obtuse sub-sessile 
spikes, each 2 inches long and 1 inch wide, with a broadly ovate and very 
acuminate bract at the base of each spike, the lowermost braet 1 foot long ; 
perianths sessile, densely erowded, white, $ inch long, with a single very 
narrow linear-acuminate light brown bracteole at base, shorter than segments 
of perianth ; segments cut to base, glabrous, shaggy at bases, distant, 6—7 
lines long, longer than anthers, narrow-linear-acuminate, very membranous, 
transparent, obsoletely 8-nerved, at first erect, afterwards wholly reflexed ; 
filaments 3 lines long, white, very stout, broad and red at base, tapering, 
arising from bases of segments; anthers 2-24 lines long, linear-acuminate, 
hastate, light brown; stigma plumose, sessile on a beak-like projection of 
disk. Female scape much smaller and more slender than male, slightly 
drooping ; panicle composed of 4 (sometimes 5) rather distant racemes, each 
2-24 inches long, 4 inch wide; bracts same as in male but narrower; 
perianths free, shortly pedicelled, closely enclosing ovary below ; segments 
cut half-way to base, very small, reflexed, with here and there minute 
rudimentary anthers; stigma sessile, somewhat trifid, papillose ; ovary 
ovate-acuminate, cylindrical, glabrous, greenish-yellow. 
Hab. Epiphytieal on trees, east slopes of Ruahine mountain range, 
County of Waipawa; January, 1884: Mr. A. Hamilton. 
8. Astelia fragrans, Col.* (Fruit). 
Fruit large globular, orange-coloured with puckered sub-angled red tips 
(stigmatic points); calyx persistent, 6-lobed, large, free, thickened, saucer- 
* See “ Trans. N.Z, Inst.,” vol. xv., p. 383, for a full description of this species, 
without its fruit. 
