16 LITSEA CALICARIS. 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE SPECIES. 
Litsea calicaris is restricted to New Zealand, and is found only in the limited 
area between the North Cape and Rotorua, being often sparsely scattered or 
very local. 
DESCRIPTION, 
Litsea calicaris, Benth. and Hook. f. 
Laurus calicaris, A. Cunn. 
Tetranthera calicaris, Hook. f. 
An erect dioecious evergreen tree, 30ft.—4oft. high ; leaves alternate, 31n.—4in. 
long, on short stalks, ovate or oblong, sometimes abruptly narrowed towards the 
apex, obtuse, entire, smooth, green, or sometimes glaucous beneath. Flowers in 
small stalked umbels springing from the axils of the leaves. Involucral leaves 
four, broadly ovate, inflated ; flowers, four to five, on short silky pedicels. Male 
flowers: Perianth of five ovate or linear-ovate leaves; stamens, twelve to four- 
teen; filaments with two shortly-stalked glands. Female flowers rather 
smaller; perianth leaves shorter, the central flower having the broadest leaves ; 
style short; stigma with three small fan-shaped lobes; ovary one-celled. Berry 
ovoid, one-seeded, red. | 
The structure of the stamens is remarkable: the filament carries a pair of 
round glands on short curved pedicels; the anthers are basifixed, and the 
pollen is discharged through four round or oblong pores, two on each side. The 
female flowers have numerous short, flattened, abortive stamens, each with a 
pair of pedicellate glands as in the male. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE X. 
Litsea calicaris, Benth. and Hook. f. Specimen showing male flowers, 
natural size. 1. Umbel of male flowers, front view. 2. Umbel of male flowers, 
back view. Both enlarged. 
