Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
1. Pennantia, Forst
1. Pennantia, Forst.
Shrubs or trees. Leaves entire or toothed. Flowers in terminal corymbose panicles or cymes, diæcious or polygamous. Calyx minute, 5-toothed. Petals, 5, hypogynous, glabrous, valvate. Stamens 5, hypogynous, alternating with the petals; filaments filiform. Ovary 1-celled; stigma nearly sessile, entire or 3-lobed; ovule solitary, pendulous. Drupe small, fleshy; stone obtusely trigonous, grooved at the back to receive a flattened cord which passes through a perforation just below the apex, and bears the pendulous seed at its tip.
Besides the New Zealand species, which is endemic, there is one in Norfolk Island, and another in New South Wales.
1. | P. corymbosa, Forst. Char. Gen. 134.—A small slender tree 15–35 ft. high; branchlets, petioles, and inflorescence pubescent. Young stage a straggling bush with numerous spreading flexuous and interlaced slender branches; leaves distant, alternate or fascicled, cuneate, ¼–½ in. long or more, 3-lobed or 3–6-toothed at the tip. Leaves of mature plants shortly petioled, alternate, 1–4 in. long, obovate oblong-ovate or oblong, obtuse, sinuate or irregularly toothed or lobed, rarely entire. Flowers small, white, fragrant, diæcious. Males: Panicles and flowers larger than in the females. Filaments exceeding the petals; anthers large, oblong-sagittate, versatile, pendulous. Ovary rudimentary. Females: Filaments shorter than the petals; anthers erect. Ovary oblong; stigma 3-lobed. Drupe black, fleshy, about ⅓ in. long.— A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 368; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 576; Raoul, Choix, 50; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 35, t. 12; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 41; Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 77, 78; Students' Fl. 88. North and South Islands: From Kaitaia southwards, but local to the north of the Waikato River. Ascends to 2000 ft. Kaikomako. November–December. Wood formerly used by the Maoris to obtain fire by friction; now occasionally employed for turnery, furniture, &c. |