Maskell. — On New Zealand Desmidiese. 297 



broadly oblong, obovate or oblong-obovate, narrowed into a short stout 

 petiole or almost sessile, very thick and coriaceous, veins hardly conspicuous, 

 margins recurved. Inflorescence axillary ; peduncles very short, each bear- 

 ing two to four sessile flowers at the top. Bracts — three at the base of each 

 flower (one bract and two bracteoles), small, concave. Flowers rather large, 

 one and a half to two inches long, reddish, more or less tinged with yellowish- 

 green. Calyx with four minute triangular teeth. Corolla narrow at the base, 

 swollen in the middle, and then contracted just below the limb ; lobes 

 four, separating about a quarter of the way down, but the corolla often splits 

 nearly to the base on one side, the four petals then pointing all in one direc- 

 tion. Stamens four ; anthers narrow-linear, basifixed. Stigma capitate. 

 Fruit not seen. 



Habitat : Thames goldfields, parasitic on Coprosma, Myrsine and Melicope. 

 Flowers in September and October. 



According to the elaborate sketch of the genus given by the author of the 

 " Genera Plantarum," our plant must be placed with a group of Indian and 

 Malayan species possessing a corolla with the petals united nearly to the 

 top, and with three bracts at the base of each flower, and which forms the 

 sub-genera Macrosolen and Elytranthe. Loranthus Jlavidus, so common in the 

 Fagus forests of Nelson and Canterbury, is referred to the same group* 

 but is a somewhat anomalous member of it. 



Loranthus colensoi has much of the habit and foliage of L. adamsii, but is 

 much larger, and can be at once distinguished by the free petals and the 

 absence of bracts. 



Search should be made in hilly and wooded districts for Loranthus tenui- 

 florus, of which only a single specimen, preserved in the Kew Herbarium, is 

 known, and the exact locality of which has been lost. It can be distinguished 

 from the other species by the oblong versatile anthers, which place it in a 

 division of the genus almost wholly composed of South American species. 



Art. XXXVIII. — Contributions towards a List of the New Zealand Desmidie®. 

 By W. M. Maskell, F. Eoy. Micros. Soc. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 1th October, 1880.] 



Plates XI. and XII. 



The following catalogue by no means pretends to contain a complete list of 

 the Desmidiese in this country ; but it has been compiled because, as I 

 believe, uo attempts have yet been made to record the existence here of 



38 



