Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

1. Hedycarya, Forst

1. Hedycarya, Forst.

Small trees or shrubs. Leaves opposite, entire or toothed. Flowers dioecious, in axillary cymes or racemes. Male flowers: Perianth broad, cup-shaped; segments 5–10, inflexed, more or less connate at the base. Stamens numerous, covering almost the whole of the disc; filaments very short or almost wanting; anthers 2-celled, dehiscing by introrse or lateral slits. Female flowers: Perianth similar to that of the males, but rather smaller. Staminodia wanting. Carpels numerous, covering the whole disc, sessile, terminated by a thick conical style; ovule pendulous, anatropous. Fruit of few or several drupes crowded on the top of the disc-shaped receptacle. Seed pendulous; albumen copious; embryo axile, radicle superior.

A genus of 8 or 10 species, one of which is endemic in New Zealand, and another in Australia, the remainder being natives of New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga.