Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
1. Sicyos, Linn
1. Sicyos, Linn.
Climbing or prostrate herbs. Leaves angular or 3–5-lobed. Flowers small, monoecious. Male flowers racemose. Calyx-tube broadly campanulate, 5-toothed. Corolla rotate, deeply 5-partite. Stamens connate into a short column; anthers 2–5, sessile at the top of the column, sinuous; cells confluent. Female flowers capitate on a short peduncle, rarely solitary. Calyx-tube adnate with the ovary; limb and corolla as in the males. Ovary 1-celled; style short, 3-fid; ovule solitary, pendulous. Fruit small, coriaceous, dry, indehiscent, covered with barbed spines.
A small genus of about 20 species, mainly from tropical America, but extending to Australia and the Pacific islands. The single New Zealand species has the range of the genus.
1. | S. angulata, Linn. Sp. Plant. 1013. — Stems trailing or 'Climbing, usually from 2 ft. to 10 ft. long but sometimes much more, glabrous or more or less scabrid. Leaves on long petioles, 2–6 in. diam. or more, ovate-cordate to reniform, palmately 5–7-lobed, the central lobe the longest, membranous, scabrid with short stiff hairs or almost glabrous; tendrils very long, branched. Flowers ⅓ in. diam., greenish; males racemose on a long peduncle; females often from the same axil, capitate on a short peduncle. Fruits clustered, ½ in. long, ovoid, compressed, •densely covered with barbed spines.— Forst. Proclr. n. 363; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 323; Hook. f. Fi. Nov. Zel. i. 72; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 82; Benth. Fl. Austral. ii'i. 322; Kirk, Students' Fl. 183. S. australis, Endl. Prodr. Fl. Norf. 67; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 525. Kermadec Islands: Abundant, attaining a large size, McGillivray, T.F.C. North Island: In various places on the coast, as far south as Hawke's Bay; more plentiful on the outlying islands than on the mainland. South Island: Queen Charlotte Sound, Banks, and Solander. Mawhai. November–March. Also in North and South America, Australia, Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island, and Polynesia. |