860 Transactions. — Botany. 



A species having affinity with C. yarviflora, A. Cunn., though very 

 distinct. 



Hab. — On the banks of the Eiver Mangatawhainui (head of the Kiver 

 Manawatu), "Forty-mile bush," 1878, and agaua, 1879; wher^ it forms 

 dense bushes witli Pmhus cissoides, chmbing tolerably high, 14-16 feet, and 

 presenting a glorious mass of yellow blossoms. Its flowers, however, are 

 very fugacious, so much so that it is difficult to obtain good specimens, the 

 mere gathering causing them to fall ; hermaphrodite flowers, though care- 

 fully sought, were not seen. 



I have very great pleasure in naming this graceful plant after our earliest 

 botanical draughtsman, Sydney Parkinson, who accompanied Sir Joseph 

 Banks and Captain Cook on their first voyage of discovery to New Zealand. 

 Manihus Parkinsonibus sacrum/^ 



Metrosideros pendens. 



A climbing plant with reddish rugged bark, having stems round or ob- 

 tusely and irregularly furrowed and angled or compressed, emitting rootlets 

 like ivy, and bearing many pendulous leafy branches. 



Leaves decussate and distichous, shortly petiolate, ovate acute, 7-9 lines 

 long, 3-5 lines broad, with occasionally a pair nearly orbicular, triplinerved 

 or sub-quintuplinerved, very pilose on both sides, thickly punctate, some- 

 what concave and imbricate, margins revolute, dark-green above and pale 

 or yellowish-green below, sub-membranaceous, old leaves rather dry with 

 obscm-e veins, young leaves and branchlets very light- coloured with scarcely 

 a tinge of green at first ; ultimate branches long, straight, always simple 

 drooping, 12-18 inches long, densely villous, hairs patent. Floivers pendu- 

 lous, white, small, 2 lines long, 8-16 together in a thyssoid panicle, mostly 

 trichotomous, and always terminal; calyx gracefully infundibuliform, nearly 

 2 lines long, more than twice as long as the ovary, much broader at top 

 and narrower at base than the ovary, pubescent and punctate, teeth 5 (some- 

 times only 3 or 4), triangular acuminate, re-curved, much longer than the 

 petals, punctate, pubescent, and springing without from below the prolonged 

 inner rim of the calyx ; pt'to/s very minute, deciduous, whitish or light pink, 

 somewhat orbicular, jagged at apex, clawed, the very short claw dark pink. 

 Anthers minute, orbicular, light pink ; filaments white, very slender, hair- 

 like, flexuose, crowded, numerous, always more than 20, 2 hnes long, 

 deciduous ; style slender, much longer than the stamens, 5 lines long, wavy, 

 persistent ; stigma dilated and slightly emarginate ; ovary very small, less 

 than a line in diameter, pilose, globose, obscurely trigonous, turgid, bm^sting 

 loculicidally nearly to base. The main peduncle or rhachis stout, terminal, 

 being the continuation of the branch, 4-6 lines long, this sometimes has a 



* Vide Trans. N. Z. Inst., Vol. X., p. 109. 



