The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage/Part I/Rosaceae
VI.ROSACEÆ, Juss.
1. Sieversia albiflora, Hook. fil.; parvula, hirsuta, caulibus seu scapis parce foliosis tri-quinquefloris, foliis radicalibus interrupte lyrato-pinnatis, foliolis lateralibus minutis grosse dentatis, terminali maximo orbiculari-cordato obscure lobato inæqualiter dentato, caulinis subsessilibus, pedicellis superne incrassatis unibracteatis, bractea sessili trifida, calycis segmentis patentibus ciliatis, petalis (albis) obovatis retusis extus pilosis, ovariis in stylum brevem rectum (nee geniculatum) attenuatis in stipitem articulatis, receptaculo elongato gracili. (Tab. VII.)
Hab. Lord Auckland's group; rocky places on the hills, alt. 1000 feet.
I regret that owing to the early season I only met with two or three flowers of this rare plant, and not one specimen with perfect fruit. It is the smallest species known to me, and has a creeping, woody, subfusiform, oblique root, throwing out coarse fibres; and from the summits of this spring most of the leaves. The stems, or rather scapes (for they remain withered stalks after the fall of the fruit), arise also from the top of this root, and are branched, twice or thrice as long as the radical leaves; they bear a few flowers with white petals, which are succeeded by the narrow elongated receptacle, hispid as it were with the persistent stipites of the carpels. It is this character which it has in common with a very arctic species, the S. Rossii, Br., together with the very short styles, that induces me to place it in Sieversia; for the style seems too short ever to be geniculated. It further differs from all known species in having white petals.
Plate VII. Fig. 1, unexpanded flower; fig. 2, expanded flower; fig. 3, petal; fig. 4 and fig. 5, stamens; fig. 6, young ovarium; fig. 7, receptacle after the carpels have fallen away:—all more or less magnified.
1. Acæna (Ancistrum) Sanguisorbæ, Vahl., Enum. vol. i. p. 294. DeC. Prodr. vol. ii. p. 592. A. Cunn. Prodr. Fl. Nov. Zeal. in Ann. Nat. Hist. vol. iii. p. 244. Ancistrum Sanguisorbæ, Linn. fil. A. anserinæfolium, Forst. Gen. t. 2.A. diandrum, Forst. Prodr. n. 52. A. decumbens, Gærtn. Fruct. t.32.
Var. β. minor; depressa, ramis brevissimis, foliis valde sericeis. A. decumbens, Menzies in Herb. Hook.
Hab. Abundant in Lord Auckland's group and Campbell's Island, especially on cliffs overhanging the sea.β. On the mountains in rocky places. McQuarrie's Island, in Herb. Hook.; also found in Dusky Bay by Mr. Menzies.
The ordinary states of this plant differ in no particular from other specimens gathered at the Bay of Islands. It is also a native of Tasmania, and probably of Southern Australia. Stems trailing, a span to two feet long. Branches erect or ascending. Leaves impari-pinnate, with 4–6 pairs of obovate or oblong, coarsely serrated, sessile leaflets, smooth on the upper surface, silky beneath, and more especially in the young plants, and in var. β. at the apices of the serratures, which are there terminated by pencils of white hairs. Flowers capitate upon long slender peduncles. Stigma plumose.
2. Acæna (Ancistrum) adscendens, Vahl, Enum. vol. i. p. 297. DeC. Prodr. vol. ii. p. 593. Ancistrum humile, Pers. Ench. vol. i. p. 30.
Hab. McQuarrie's Island. (Herb. Hook.)
This is perhaps the most common and widely diffused species of the genus, being found abundantly throughout Chili and Fuegia, as well as in the Falkland Islands and Kerguelen's Land. It may readily be distinguished by its large size, and by its smooth red-brown, often glaucous, decumbent stems. The leaflets are generally membranous, obovate or cuneate, ⅓–⅔ inch long, coarsely inciso-serrate, glabrous on the upper surface, pubescent or almost silky beneath. The scapes or peduncles, bearing the globose capitula, are quite glabrous. The whole plant varies much in the size and toothing of its leaflets, whence I am inclined to think it may be the large and ordinary form of A. Magellanica, Lam.; although Vahl describes the peduncles of that plant as "superne subvillosi." I further doubt how far the A. ovalifolia, Ruiz, and Pav. (Fl. Per. t. 103. f. c), will prove distinct; it again is allied to the A. Sanguisorbæ, Vahl. The present form was not found either in Tasmania, New Zealand, or in Lord Auckland's or Campbell's Islands. The fact of its reappearance in a higher southern latitude is an interesting one, and in accordance with the known laws affecting the distribution of plants.