236 
LXIIT. POLYGONEjE. 
[Polygonum. 
Var. 0. Dryandri. — P. Dryandri, Spr. ; FI. N. Z. i. 210. Smaller. Stipules shorter. 
Northern Island: east coast, Ahuriri, Colenso. Middle Island: Akaroa, Raoul; 
var. 0, east coast, Ruamahanga and Tuki-tukimiu, Colenso ; Port Cooper, Lyall ; Otago, 
covering acres of ground by roadsides, Hector and Buchanan. A very common plant in all 
temperate and some tropical parts of the world, perhaps introduced into New Zealand, where 
it is spreading with extraordinary rapidity. 
2. MUHLENBECKIA, Meisn. 
Shrubs and undershnibs, sometimes small, often rampant, and climbing 
with much-intertwined slender branches. Flowers small, whitish or greenish, 
spiked, or axillary and few or solitary ; spikes sometimes panicled. Pedicels 
jointed below the perianth. — Flowers unisexual, monoecious or polygamous. 
Perianth 5-lobed, lower part becoming fleshy, often white in fruit. Stamens 
8 ; filaments short ; anthers oblong ; very reduced thick and short in the 
female flowers with imperfect anthers. Ovary sessile, 3-gonous, with 3 very 
short, papillose or. fimbriate stigmas. Nut ovoid, acuminate, 3-quetrous, 
black, enclosed in the perianth, whose basal part is succulent. 
A small genus of Australian, New Zealand, and South American plants. 
Leaves 1-2 in. long, broad, ovate or cordate. Spikes panicled . . . 1. 31. adpressa. 
Leaves in. long, broad, ovate or cordate. Spikes usually simple . 2. M. complexa. 
Leaves x‘o _ i in. long, orbicular or oblong. Flowers subsolitary . . 3. 31. axillaris. 
Leaves 0, or minute and narrow. Male flowers spiked, female often 
solitary 4. M. ephedroides. 
1. IVI. adpressa. Lab.; — Polygonum australe, A. Rich.; — FI. N. Z. i. 
210. A large, rambling and climbing, leafy bush, glabrous. Stem and 
branches often twining, flexuous, grooved ; branchlets often minutely scabe- 
rulous. Leaves ^-2 in., long, petioled, cordate or broadly oblong and trun- 
cate at the base, obtuse acute or apiculate, glabrous, in young plants 3-lobed ; 
stipules deciduous. Spikes panicled, many-flowered, glabrous ; bracts obtuse, 
1-3-flowered. Flowers small, unisexual. Stigmas plumose. Perianth fleshy 
in fruit. Nut 3-gonous, black. — Coccoloba australis, Forst. 
Abundant throughout the islands, Banks and Solander, etc. Common in Norfolk Island, 
Australia, and Tasmania. Meisner (A. DC. Prodr. xiv. 146) distinguishes the New Zealand 
from the Australian plant by the stigmas plumose, not papillose, but 1 find the stigmas of 
the Australian plant to be the most plumose of the two. The Chilian M. Chilensis, Meisn., 
seems to be the same species. 
2. M. complexa, Meisn. — Polygonum complexum, A. Cunn. ; — FI. N. 
Z. i. 210. Stems slender, prostrate or climbing over bushes, much interlaced, 
flexuous, scaberulous or glabrous, grooved, 1-5 ft. long. Leaves petiolate, 
quite glabrous or puberulous at the base and on the petiole, £-■ J in. long, 
broadly obovate-cordate or orbicular, often contracted in the middle, some- 
times dotted below, rarely acute ; stipules deciduous ; petiole long or short. 
Spikes simple or panicled, sometimes very short and reduced to 1 or 2 
flowers, glabrous pubescent or tomentose. Bracts obtuse, 1-6-flowered. 
Perianth fleshy in fruit. Stigmas papillose. Nut 3-gonous, black. 
Throughout the islands, abundant, Banks and Solander, etc. Some large states of this 
seem to pass into 31. adpressa, Lab., and small ones into 31. axillaris. 
3. M. axillaris, HooJc.f. — Polygonum axillare, Hook. f. FI. N. Z. i. 2 11. A 
small species, 1-6 in. high; quite glabrous, except the branchlets and petioles, 
