The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage/Part I/Rubiaceae
XIV. RUBIACEÆ, Juss.
1. Coprosma fœtidissima, Forst.; arborea, glaberrima, foliis petiolatis exacte elliptico-oblongis obtusis apicibus vix mucronatis, floribus terminalibus solitariis, baccis subrotundis sessilibus.—(Tab. XIII.) C. fœtidissima, Forst. Prodr. n. 138. DeC. Prodr. vol. iv. p. 578. A. Rich. Flor. Nov. Zel. p. 261. A. Cunn. Prodr. Flor. Nov. Zel. l.c. vol. ii. p. 206.
Hab. Lord Auckland's group; in the woods near the sea, also ascending in the valleys to 900 feet.
This is a perfectly distinct plant, though confounded by Cunningham (as his specimens in Herb. Heward prove) with the C. lucida, Forst. It is probably a very abundant species in the middle and southern islands of New Zealand, where, however, it had until quite lately been gathered by Forster alone, in Queen Charlotte's Sound. It has been more recently detected on the mountainous interior of the Northern Island by Mr. Colenso, whose specimens (n. 117) are rather less robust, with the leaves narrower and more membranaceous. It is one of the few large-leaved species with truly solitary and sessile flowers and berries. In this group of islands it often attains a height of 20 feet, with a trunk 1½; foot in diameter. The whole plant, especially when bruised or when drying, exhales an exceedingly fetid odour, much resembling that of the flowers of Hibbertia volubilis. I brought on board the "Erebus" specimens of this with other plants, late one evening, and finding that there were more tender species, which took a considerable time to lay in paper, than I could well get through that night, I locked this Coprosma in a small close cabin until I should have leisure to press it, but before half an hour had elapsed the smell was intolerable, and had pervaded the whole of the lower deck. The leaves, though very constant in form, vary much in size, and in the alpine specimens are scarcely more than ½–⅓ inch long.
Plate XIII. Fig. 1, longitudinal section of a ripe berry showing the nucules; fig. 2, lateral, and fig. 3, back view of a nucule removed; fig. 4, longitudinal section of do.; fig. 5, front, and fig. 6, lateral view of the seed removed from the nucule; fig. 7, longitudinal section of seed, showing the embryo; fig. 8, cotyledons:—all magnified.
2. Coprosma affinis, Hook. fil.; arborea, glaberrima, foliis petiolatis elliptico-lanceolatis acutis, floribus terminalibus solitariis sessilibus. (Tab. XIV.)
Hab. Lord Auckland's group; in low woods near the sea.
This plant, which I found only in the state of young fruit, is so nearly allied to the preceding, that it is not without much hesitation I retain it as a distinct species, which I do on the ground of there being, in a large suite of specimens of C. fœtidissima, none with the leaves intermediate in form between that species and the present. It may be readily recognised by the larger and longer leaves, which are decidedly acuminated at the apex: its season of flowering too seems to be different.
Plate XIV. Fig. 1, an immature berry:—magnified.
3. Coprosma cuneata, Hook. fil.; fruticosa, glabra, ramis attenuatis rigidis, ramulis pubescentibus, foliis fasciculatis parvis rigidis coriaceis anguste cuneatis apice emarginato-truncatis sessilibus enerviis subtus pallidioribus, stipulis apice barbatis, floribus solitariis, fructibus in ramulis ultimis terminalibus solitariis globosis. (Tab. XV.)
β. foliis longioribus, apice rotundatis.
Hab. Lord Auckland's group and Campbell's Island; in woods near the sea. β. In ravines at an altitude of 900 feet on the former, and near the sea in Campbell's Island.
The investigation of the genus Coprosma, and especially of the small-leaved species, is attended with very great difficulty. Those of the extreme southern parts of the New Zealand group seem different from such as inhabit the northern islands, and these again from the Australian and Tasmanian kinds. In each locality, however, the forms seem so protean, that more than words is required to assist in their determination, whilst the paucity of specimens hitherto received has obliged botanists to separate dissimilar specimens of what a more copious supply might prove to belong to the same plant. It is to avoid any further confusion that I have ventured to figure three species, of which I have no materials for such an analysis of the flower and fruit as a good botanical drawing should possess. The C. cuneata, in its ordinary form especially, appears one of the most distinct of these, and has the leaves invariably very blunt, larger at the upper extremity, and then retuse or decidedly notched: they are rigid and coriaceous in texture, and very uniform in size. In the woods near the sea it forms a remarkably harsh, woody, and repeatedly branched shrub, whose stems are often 2 inches in diameter at the base, and covered with a rough black bark. The pale, but bright, red of the berries, which are abundantly produced, forms a very pretty contrast amongst the deep shining foliage.
Plate XV. Fig. 1, ripe berries; fig. 2, longitudinal transverse section of do.; fig. 3, nucules removed from the berry; fig. 4, transverse section of a nucule; fig. 5, front; and fig. 6, side view of seed; fig. 7, longitudinal section of do. showing the embryo:—all magnified.
4. Coprosma myrtillifolia, Hook. fil.; fruticosa, ramulis pubescenti-cinereis, foliis subfasciculatis parvis lato-lanceolatis subcarnosis brevissime petiolatis acutiusculis glabris subtus obscure nervosis, baccis solitariis.
Hab. Lord Auckland's group; in ravines about 600 feet above the sea.
A small and almost leafless bush, which, like its congeners, is very apt to vary in its mode of growth. In the ordinary state it grows 3–4 feet high, and from the lower parts of the stems and branches being bare of leaves, it assumes a spiny appearance. The leaves are patent, ⅓—½ inch long, scarcely coriaceous; the stipules hairy and ciliated at the margins.
5. Coprosma ciliata, Hook. fil.; fruticosa, ramis pilosis, foliis oppositis solitariis vel fasciculatis submembranaceis elliptico-lanceolatis obtusis v. subacutis basi in petiolurn perbrevem attenuatis ciliatis, petiolo costaque subtus præcipue hirsutis, stipulis apice barbatis.
β. virgata, laxe foliosa, ramis virgatis tenuibus.
Hab. Lord Auckland's group; in ravines, alt. 500–1000 feet. β. In Campbell's Island, in shady situations near the sea.
A common shrub, especially in Lord Auckland's group, where it forms a densely branched bush, growing from 8–10 feet high. The Campbell's Island specimens again are very lax, twiggy, and sparingly leafy; and the leaves, which in α. are ½–⅔ inch long, are in β. generally under that size. I have seen neither flower nor fruit. The bushes of the various species of Coprosma compose a dense and impenetrable thicket, on the margins of the narrow gulleys formed by water-courses on the faces of the hills. Becoming stunted and much branched from the violence of the perennial gales, they offer as powerful an obstacle to the traveller here as the beeches do in Tierra del Fuego. In both cases it is almost equally impossible to penetrate them; but, extraordinary as it may appear, their branches are so gnarled and densely matted, that their flat summits will often bear the human weight, and almost admit of walking upon them.
6. Coprosma repens, Hook. fil.; fruticulosa longe repens ramosissima glaberrima, ramis ramulisque brevibus, foliis parvis coriaceo-carnosis rigidis ovatis in petiolum brevem latiusculum attenuatis supra planis v. concavis subtus convexis, stipulis brevibus obtusis carnosis una cum petiolis connato-vaginatis, floribus solitariis terminalibus baccis 2–4 pyrenis. (Tab. XVI.)
Hab. Lord Auckland's and Campbell's Island; common from the sea to the tops of the hills.
Caules pedales et ultra, vage repentes, fibras tenues ramosas ad axillas foliorum emittentes, cortice cinereo spongioso sæpe obtecti, crassitie pennæ passerinæ. Folia breviter petiolata, horizontaliter patentia, conferta, crassiuscula, ovata v. elliptica, obtusa, concava, nitida, enervia, sub. 3 lin. longa. Stipulæ late ovatæ, obtusæ, glaberrimæ. Flores ad apices ramorum solitarii, sessiles, verosimiliter dioici. Calycis limbus profunde 4-partitus; segmentis lineari-ovatis obtusis. Corolla (in exemplaribus Tasmanicis solummodo mihi visa) tubulosa, subcampanulata, paululum curvata; tubo elongato, ore quadrifido; segmentis ovatis, subacutis. Stamina 4; filamentis longissimis, exsertis; antheris majusculis, pendulis, linearibus, ungue uncinato terminatis. Styli 2, longe exserti, pubescentes. Bacca (in exempl. Aucklandicis) subglobosa, omnino sessilis, diametro 3 lin., pallide vel intensius rubra, carnosa et aquosa, intus 2–4-pyrena. Nuculæ crustaceæ, 1-loculares, 1-spermæ, unica v. duobus ⅓ majoribus. Semen erectum; testa fusca, membranacea; albumine carnoso. Embryo majusculus; radicula hilo proxima, elongata, terete; cotyledonibus latis.
This plant is apparently identical with a species collected on Middlesex Plains, Tasmania, by R. C. Gunn, Esq.; a remarkable circumstance, as its low, procumbent mode of growth gives it the appearance of being an Antarctic form of the genus. The Auckland Island specimens I gathered with young and ripe fruit only, the corolla and styles having invariably fallen away. These latter, as well as the stamens, I have drawn and described from Mr. Gunn's specimens, fully believing the two plants to be the same. I must however here remark, that other states from either locality may be found to possess unexpected characters of sufficient importance to keep them distinct. I am not aware of any other species exhibiting 4 nucules.
The prevalence of Rubiaceæ in these islands is a very singular fact in botanical geography; ranking as they do in number of species next only to Compositæ among Dicotyledonous plants, and almost equalling them both numerically and in the amount of space they occupy. In Antarctic America they are represented by a very few Stellatæ, which group is here entirely absent. As no other order exhibits so remarkable an excess, they probably balance the strangely disproportionate want of Compositæ, which appear to have almost as few representatives in proportion to the mass of exogenous vegetation as any other island. Comparing the dicotyledonous vegetation of the Falkland Islands with that of Lord Auckland's, it will be seen, that in the former the Compositæ are to the other Dicot. as 1:2.8, and that Rubiaceæ (Galium) are to Compos. as 1:21: but in the latter group, Compos. are to the other Dicot. only as 1:4.5, and Rubiaceæ to Compositæ as 1:1.6! If in each we add these two Nat. Orders together, it will be found, that in the Falklands the proportion which the sum of Rubiaceæ and Compositæ bear to other Dicotyledonous plants, is as 1:2.7, and in Lord Auckland's group as 1:2.3: proving, that as far as these two remote localities are comparable, Rubiaceæ only balance in the latter the want of what is generally, in all climates, the preponderating natural order. This is one only of many equally singular proofs, which a little patient investigation may deduce, that a harmony exists and may be traced in the vegetation of remote climates, whose Floras are otherwise totally dissimilar.
Plate XVI. Fig. 1, a ripe berry, nat. size; fig. 2, transverse section of do., showing the nucules; fig. 3, nucules removed; fig. 4, transverse section of the latter, showing the seed; fig. 5, lateral, and fig. 6, front view of a seed; fig. 7, vertical section of do.:—all magnified.
B. Flowering portion from Tasmanian specimens, nat. size; fig. 1, a male flower; fig. 2, a female flower:—both magnified.
1. Nertera depressa, Banks in Gærtu. i. t. 26. et Icon. ined. Plant. Nov. Zel. in Mus. Brit. t. 22. Forst. Prodr. n. 501. Smith, Icon. ined. t. 28. Carmichael in Linn. Trans. vol. xii. p. 505. Gaudich. Flor. des lies Malouines in Ann. Sc. Nat. vol. v. p. 104. Gaud, in Freycinet, Voy. p. 135. D'Urville, Flor. Ins. Mal. in Annal. Soc. Linn. Paris, vol. iv. p. 612. Pet. Thouars, Flor. Trist. d'Acun. p. 42. t. 10. DeC. Prodr. vol. iv. p. 451. A. Cunn. Flor. Nov. Zel. l.c. p. 208.
Hab. Lord Auckland's group; creeping amongst moss in the woods, where its bright red berries give it a pretty appearance.
My specimens are unfortunately not in flower; they however entirely resemble the figures of N. depressa above quoted, and agree with numerous Falkland Island and other southern specimens of that plant with which I have compared it. In Mr. Cunningham's 'Flora of New Zealand,' its precise habitat is omitted; but it is inserted in a MS. copy of that 'Flora' which formed part of my library at sea. There he mentions the "Falls of the Keri-Keri river" as the only locality in which he gathered it. In botanizing over that spot repeatedly in September and October 1841, in company with Mr. Colenso, we often met with Cunningham's plant, both there and afterwards in other moist places near cataracts; it is however entirely different from the true N. depressa, being much smaller in all its parts, with narrower and more acuminated leaves. The berries of the Auckland Island specimens are very much vertically depressed, and their structure is entirely that of the genus Coprosma.