Ruppia. | 7 NAIDACEAE, 129 
1. R. maritima Linn. Sp. Plant. (1753) 127—Stems slender, filiform, 
variable in length, 6-24 in., leafy throughout. Leaves 2-5 in. long, filiform, 
with broad membranous sheathing bases. Flowers 2-6 together, at first 
completely enclosed in the inflated leaf-sheath; but the spike gradually 
emerges, and is borne up to the surface of the water by the usually 
conspicuously spirally coiled peduncle. Ripe carpels +,-+ in. long, greenish, 
obliquely ovoid, beaked; each one on a slender stipes sometimes more 
than 1 in. long.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i (1853) 236; Handb. N.Z. Fi. 
(1864) 279; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii (1878) 174; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. 
Fl. (1906) 751. 
Nortu anp SoutH Istanps: Abundant throughout in brackish-water ponds and 
lagoons, not so common in fresh-water lakes and streams. December—A pril. 
All the specimens I have seen have spirally coiled peduncles and rather broad 
sheaths; but in all probability the variety (or species) rostellata will also be found, 
which has straight or flexuous peduncles and narrow leaf-sheaths. 
4, ZANNICHELLIA Linn. 1772S. 
Slender submerged water-plants; stems filiform, branched. Leaves 
usually opposite, filiform, sheathing at the base; sheaths stipular. Flowers 
ee ae en bE eee ee are | a omala mala and famale enclosed mn the 
Zannichellia palustris L., 
= (Llepilaena preissii, F. Muell.) 
T.N.ZeI. vol. 53, p. 563. 
bent into a short Coll. 
An almost cosmopolitan genus of 4 or 5 closely allied species, probably all forms 
of one. 
1. Z. palustris Linn. Sp. Plant. (1753) 969—Stems very slender, much 
branched, leafy throughout, often forming dense masses, 3-14 in. long. 
Leaves opposite or subwhorled, very slender, 4-3 in. long, filiform, flat. 
Flowers sessile or very shortly pedicelled. Fruiting carpels 3 or 4, about 
7zin. long, stipitate or almost sessile, curved, smooth or very obscurely 
crenate on the back; styles from 4 to almost as long as the carpels.— 
Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i (1853) 237; Handb. N.Z. Fl. (1864) 280; T. Kirk 
m Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxviii (1896) 498; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. FI. (1906) 
152. 
Norrs Istanp; Auckland—Abundant in the Waikato River, from Taupiri down- 
wards, also in Lakes Waikare, Whangape, and Waihi, 7’. Kirk! T. F.C. Hawke’s Bay 
—Tangoia Lagoon, Colenso! Soura IsLanp: Otago—Waikouaiti Lagoon, Pelrie ! 
December—May. 
The Waikato specimens have the carpels sessile or nearly so, and decidedly turgid ; 
in those from Hawke’s Bay and Otago they are distinctly stipitate, and with longer 
styles, Both forms have the back of the carpel smooth or nearly so, 
5—F'. 
