Colenso. — Descriptions of new Indigenous Plants, 239 



Order XXXIII. UMBELLIFEBJE. 

 Genus 1. Hydrocotyle, Linn. 



1. Hydrocotyle concinna, sp. nov. 



Plant creeping, slender, pilose, soft, forming dense beds. Stems 2-3 

 feet (and more) long, rooting at nodes. Leaves membranaceous, green, 

 distant, generally 1, sometimes 2, springing from a node, sub-orbicular, 

 8-10 lines diameter, roughish above with glandular pubescence of large 

 flattish white and pink hairs, with a few larger and pink coloured ones 

 scattered on the veins, deeply 5-lobed, lobes regular, broadest at apices, 

 sub-tri-laciniate and sharply toothed, teeth long and curved ; petioles 3 

 inches long, slender, finely striate ; stipules large, broadly ovate, laciniate. 

 Peduncles axillary and lateral (from nodes), erect, slender, much longer 

 than the leaves, 4-6 inches long, pink-striped, thickly clothed with weak 

 curved hairs ; umbels 20-22-flowered ; flowers radiate on long glabrous 

 pedicels sub 2 lines long, each bearing a few scattered erect hairs and mostly 

 in a single line ; involucral leaves and bracteoles numerous, ovate -linear, 

 laciniate and pointed ; flowers greenish-white tinged with pink, red-striped 

 on the outside ; petals ovate, obtuse, spreading ; calyx tube raised, tubercu- 

 late, dark-red ; styles diverging, sub-clavate ; stigmas capitate, red, minutely 

 pencilled. Fruit orbicular, at first semi-transparent, echinate, light brown, 

 carpels with one rib on each face. 



Hab. In dense rather dry forests, on the ground. Seventy-mile 

 Bush, County of Waipawa ; 1878-84: W.C. Flowering in March. 



Obs. This is a truely graceful species, neat, pretty, and uniform in all 

 its parts. I have long known it, and though I had early considered it to be 

 new, and often brought away specimens, I never found time to dissect, 

 examine and compare it, until the autumn of 1884, when I did so leisurely 

 in its native forests. Sometimes the young immature and unfolded leaves 

 present a highly curious appearance ; sessile at the nodes in small globular 

 woolly masses, with their green cut and plaited margins fringing then- 

 tops ; reminding one of young hazel-nuts. I believe it to be the work 

 of some insect, having found the darkish-yellow larvae snugly ensconced 

 within. 



2. Hydrocotyle uniflora, sp. nov. 



Stems creeping, rooting at nodes, whence also spring the leaves and 

 peduncles fascicled. Leaves glabrous, entire, orbicular-truncate, or oblong- 

 orbicular, always truncate at base, 5-7 lines long, rounded at apex, finely 

 and regularly crenately toothed (3-4) towards base, and often with one 

 small acute tooth at or below the two corners, 5-nerved, green, often purple 

 above and covered with very minute white dots as if stippled, margins purple, 

 sometimes largely and loosely hairy below at base and on the nerves, veinlets 



