330 Transactions.— Botany i 



trifid leaflet, glabrous on both sides, sub-coriaceous, entire, dark-green 

 margined with a deep black line ; petioles glabrous, opposite, 1-2 inches 

 long ; floivers opposite, axillary, solitary, sometimes (though rarely) two 

 from one axil, and very rarely three pedicelled on one peduncle ; peduncle 

 ■|— 1-^ inches long, shorter than petioles, tri- and quadri-bracteolate, slightly 

 pubescent below, densely so from uppermost pair of bracteoles ; hracteoles 

 free, connate, cup-shaped, pubescent, very obtuse and rotund at apices, 

 obsoletely veined, each pair increasing in size upwards, the largest pair 

 nearest the flower; sejmls four, dull light-purple, thin, slightly spreading 

 and revolute, 3 rarely 4 lines long, ovate, oblong-lanceolate, obtuse, 

 glabrous within, silky pubescent without, ciliated, finely and obscurely 

 veined longitudinally with 4-5 veins ; male floivers on peduncles usually 

 shorter than those bearing the hermaphrodite ones, and with only three 

 pairs of bracteoles; anthers 25-28, elliptic, obtuse, light yellow ; yi/awents 

 broadly linear-lanceolate, flat, dark purple, outer shorter than sepals, inner 

 sub-sessile ; hermaphrodite floivers with only four stamens ; j^istils white, 

 silky, very glossy at first, a little longer than sepals, glabrous, curved and 

 clubbed at points ; achenes 22-24, capitate, sessile, ovate, subsetose with 

 short white hairs ; tails very hauy, 8-9 lines long. 



Hah. — In low-lying marshy spots, Hawke's Bay, S.W. and S. side. 



This little plant has long been imperfectly known, no doubt partly owing 

 to its small size (when compared with its indigenous congeners), to its want 

 of striking colours, to its lowly growth, and to its peculiar habitat — hidden 

 among the rank vegetation of marshes and on the edges of watery places, 

 and not unfrequently springing from within a large tuft of Carex virgata. I 

 first met with it so long back as 1847, on the banks of the Lake Eotoatara, 

 near Te Aute, but my specimens then were incomplete. Subsequently (1872) 

 it was detected by Mr. Sturm in the low ground between the Ngaruroro and 

 Tukituki rivers, near Olive. Mr. Sturm also removed plants to his nurse- 

 ries in hopes of cultivating them, but failed. Last year (1880) it was also 

 found by Mr. Hamilton, in similar localities, near Petane; from him I have 

 received ample specimens, in various states, which have enabled me to draw 

 up this description. Though small, it is a neat-looking, almost a graceful 

 plant, and difl'ers widely from all our indigenous species of Clematis, as well 

 as from the described Australian, Tasmanian, and South Pacific species. 

 This species has but very slight affinity with C. fcetida, Eaoul, under which 

 species Dr. Sir Jos. Hooker had provisionally placed it as a variety.* 

 Clematis parkinsoniana, W.C. 



Hermapheodite, or Female, Plant : Leaves trifoliolate, smaller and 

 much more regular in size and outline than in the male plant, each leaf- 

 let usually ovate, 4-10 lines long, and deeply incised with 2-6 incisions, 



* "Flora Novffi-Zealandiffi," vol. i., p. 7, and "Handbook New Zealand Flora," p. 2. 



