328 Transactions. — Botany. 



TIab. Hills, forests on the east coast between Wainui and Akitio 

 rivers, " 900 feet elevation ;" January, 1883 : Mr. Horace Baker, in lit. 



Obs. I. — A species near to M. perforata, A. Kichard, as described at 

 length by him ;* his specimens were also obtained from Cook Straits, but 

 differing largely in its vesicular capsule calyx and corolla, which plain and 

 constant characters, even in dried specimens, could never, I think, have 

 been overlooked by Eichard. 



II. — Sir J. D. Hooker has also made but one species of the above- 

 mentioned plant (M. perforata) and A. Cunningham's M. buxifolia : I, 

 however, have ever believed (with A. Cunningham) their being distinct ; 

 although I have never seen sj)ecimens of Kichard' s (and Forster's) Southern 

 New Zealand plant, which is, also, not a climber (apud Richard, he. cit.) : 

 this " erect" character, however, does not belong to A. Cunningham's M. 

 buxifolia, which is a climbing species, and is as common in the forests here 

 (Hawke's Bay) as it is at the north. 



III. — This species, from its short bushy size, small neat leaves, and 

 very numerous flowers, is likely to become a favourite garden shrub. 

 Although I have never seen it living, I have received several good speci- 

 mens from Mr. Baker, and they are very uniform. 



Order XXXIV. AKALIACEJE. 

 Genus 2. Panax, Linn. 

 Panax microphylla, sp. nov. 



Plant a small hard- wooded shrub of diffuse growth, 4-5 feet high ; 

 branches few, long, slender, straggling, and irregular; branchlets brachiate, 

 roughish, sub-muricated with minute tubercles, and occasionally on the 

 younger branchlets a few scattered very small linear-ovate obtuse scales. 

 Leaves small, sub-membranaceous, glabrous, alternate, sometimes in pairs, 

 scattered rather distant, compound and simple, flat, spreading, usually sub- 

 orbicular, 4-5 lines diameter, rounded and very obtuse at apex — sometimes 

 rhombic and apiculate, sometimes lanceolate and very small, some- 

 times trifoliolate on long slender petiolules, the middle leaflet being the 

 largest, and sometimes a simple leaf having a pair of minute leaflets just 

 below its base — the upper half of the leaf being slightly crenulate, each 

 crenature generally bearing a small incurved sharp tooth, — the lower portion 

 cuneate, decurrent, margins conniving, jointed to petiole with 4-6 minute 

 linear acute stipellae at junction, and several similar stipules at base of 

 petiole ; colour bright green with minute white dots on the upper surface, 

 paler green below ; margins coloured purple ; veins indistinct ; petioles 

 purple-brown, deeply channelled, slender, glabrous, 1-2 lines long. Fruit 

 axillary orbicular, about \\ lines diameter, sub-compressed, smooth, on 



* " Voyage de l'Astrolabe, Botanique," p. 334. 



