GUNNERA PETALOIDEA GAUD. 
35 
grooved. The branches or spikes are 4-9 inches long, undivided, 
crowded but lax and spreading; they are covered throughout with 
clustered or scattering sessile flowers. The bracts of the inflorescence 
are linear, scarious, i-ij in. long. The flowers are bisexual and not 
bracteolate. The calyx is globular with adnate tube; there are two 
lobes, one anterior and one posterior; these are persistent, each 1-2 
mm. long, broadly ovate or triangular, with broad or truncate apex, 
denticulate or 3-toothed, with a raised line along the inner face. The 
petals are two, alternate with the calycine lobes and 2 or 3 times as 
long; cucullate, enclosing the stamens before anthesis; broadly ovate 
or cuneate, retuse, obscurely glandular on the back, thickish in 
texture, epigynous; tardily deciduous. The stamens are two, epigy- 
nous, opposite the petals; filaments very short; anthers large, about 
2 mm. long, emarginate at each end, somewhat didymous, fixed 
by the base, introrse, the two cells opening longitudinally. Pollen 
grains four-lobed. Styles two, opposite the stamens, and nearly 
twice their length; linear-subulate, hispid, slightly united at the base. 
Ovary one-loculed, with a single anatropous ovule suspended from 
the summit of the locule. Drupes ovoid-globose, yellow, reddish or 
purple, 2-4 mm. long, crowned with the short and incurved calycine 
lobes; the calyx tube forming the fleshy sarcocarp; endocarp small in 
proportion; acheniform, lenticular, 3- or 4-angled, crustaceous. Seed 
conformed to the endocarp; testa very thin and delicate; embryo 
minute, near the hilar extremity of the fleshy and oily albumen, sub- 
cordate, the radicle superior. 
Schindler's monograph of the Halorrhagaceae in Engler's Pflanzen- 
reich contains the following detailed description of petaloidea: 
"Statura maxima, metrali vel ultra; rhizomate crasso, baud stolonifera, folia 
subpauca rosulata apice procreante, ligulis chartaceis, glabris, ± 45 mm. longis, 
latissime ellipticis apice obtusis, pluries divisus induto, scapos floriferos complures 
axillares proferente. 
"Folia maxima, petiolo validissimo, ± 0.6 m. longo, canaliculato, bavsi laxe piloso 
superne glabro vel. glabrato, hinc inde aculeolis brevibus sueto fere punctiformibus 
instructo stipitata; lamina depresse reniformi sat latiore ac longa, latissime cordata, 
circuitu in lobos subaequales sueto 9 late rotundatos vel obtusos divisa, margine 
grosse crenata, dentibus junioribus apice apiculatis senioribus obtusis, supra plana 
nec prominenti-areolata, praeter nervos nervillosque supra perlaxe subtus densius 
pilis crassis conspersos glabra, usque as 0.5 m. lata mihi visi. 
" Inflorescentia scapo crasso, lineatim angulato, arcuatim adscendente, brevi 
sed semper manifesto, juniore saltem dense pilis crassis conicis consperso elata, quam 
folia bervior, 00 flora, densior laxiorve, optime thyrsoidea, apice breviter acuta, 
