18 
IV. VIOLARIEiE. 
[Melicytus. 
very short, curved, bracteate at the base. Calyx obtusely and shortly 4-lobed ; 
lobes broad, ciliated. Petals small, orbicular. Anthers rounded, didymous, 
sessile. Ovary flagon-shaped ; style short ; stigma 4-lobed. Berry minute, 
as small as a mustard-seed, about 3-seeded. — Elceodendron micranthus. Hook. f. 
in Lond. Journ. Bot. iii. 228. t. 8. 
Northern Island : east coast and interior, Colenso. Middle Island : Nelson, Bidwill. 
A plant of very different habit and appearance from the preceding species. 
3. HYMENANTHEEA, Br. 
Woody shrubs, with alternate or fascicled, entire or toothed, minutely 
stipuled leaves, and small axillary, solitary, fascicled, sometimes unisexual 
flowers. — Sepals 5. Petals 5, short. Anthers sessile, connate; connective 
produced into a membrane, and furnished with a scale at the back. Style 
short, with a 2-lobed stigma. Berry small, with 2 or few globose seeds on 
2 placentas. 
A small genus, native also of Norfolk Island, Tasmania, and South-eastern Australia, the 
species are very variable in foliage. 
1. H. crassifolia, Hook. f. FI. N. Z. i. 17. t. 7. A small shrub, 2-4 
ft. high, with rigid, stout, tortuous branches, rarely sending out straight 
shoots ; branchlets pubescent ; bark white. Leaves very variable, thickly 
coriaceous, common form linear-spathulate, 2-3 in. long, but on young shoots 
often larger, broader, sinuate or toothed, and in older shorter, obtuse, veined 
when dry ; petioles short ; stipules very minute and deciduous. Flowers 
very small, solitary or few together, axillary ; pedicels short, stout, curved, 
with one concave appressed bract. Sepals orbicular, erose or ciliolate. Pe- 
tals linear-oblong. Anthers recurved, connate into a membranous lobed tube, 
the lobes ciliolate. Berries £ in. diam., blue-purple. 
Northern Island : maritime rocks opposite the Cavallos Islands, A. Cunningham ; Cape 
Palliser, Colenso. Middle Island : Nelson, Bidwill, Travers. 
Order y. PITTOSPORE^l. 
Shrubs or trees, with alternate or whorled, exstipulate, evergreen leaves and 
regular flowers. — Sepals 5, imbricate. Petals 5, with long, erect claws and 
spreading limbs, imbricate. Stamens 5, free, hypogynous, erect, with oblong 
or sagittate anthers. Ovary 1 or 2, rarely 3-5-celled (often imperfectly), with 
a short or long style ; ovules many, placentas attached to the septa. Capsule 
usually bursting by woody valves, which bear the placentas on the middle. 
Seeds with a minute embryo in hard albumen. 
Rather a small Order, abounding in Australia ; represented only by Piltosporum in India 
and its islands, the Pacific, and Africa : absent in America. 
1. PITTOSPORUM, Linn. 
Plowers often polygamous. Sepals free. Petals usually recurved. Fila- 
ments subulate. Ovary perfectly or imperfectly 2-5-celled. Capsule woody 
or coriaceous. Seeds immersed in a transparent gluten. 
