The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage/Part I/Umbelliferae
XII. UMBELLIFERÆ, Juss.
1. POZOA, Lag.
1. Pozoa reniformis, Hook, fil.; foliis longe petiolatis reniformibus multilobatis lobis latis retusis, petiolis basi vaginantibus, pedunculis petiolo brevioribus, involucri foliolis 3–4 linearibus, pedicellis 5–7 brevibus, calycis lobis late ovatis obtusis. (Tab. XI.)
Hab. Lord Auckland's group; clefts of rocks and amongst stones on the hills, alt. 1400 feet.
Herba pusilla, glaberrima, carnosa, facie Hydrocotylis, graveolens. Caulis crassitie pennæ passerinæ, longe repens, articulatus, nodosus, ad nodos cicatricatus, apice foliosus. Folia ½–¾ unc. lata, exacte reniformia, luride viridia, nitentia, radiatim venosa, lobis late rotundatis. Petioli 2–3 unciales; vaginis basi magnis latis, superne acutis. Pedunculi ex axillis fohorum, breves, semipollicares. Pedicelli vix 2 lin. longi. Petala parva, obovata, subacuta, medio late uninervia. Stylopodia superne truncata. Fructus oblongus, tetragonus; mericarpiis demum dorso canaliculatis.
A decidedly extra-tropical South American form, belonging to a section of the Nat. Ord. hitherto unknown to the Floras both of New Zealand and Australia. The remarkable similarity of the flower and fruit to those of the P. coriacea, Lag. (Hook. Bot. Misc. vol. i. p. 331. t. 66), together with the uniformity in the structure of its calyx and petals with that plant, have induced me to refer it to the same genus; but, from the difference in habit and the structure of the involucre of the species thus brought together, I have ventured to place this in a separate subgenus. The original species (P. coriacea), and the P. hydrocotylifolia, Bridges and Fielding (Sertum Plant, t. 40), have the flowers monœcious, a character I do not observe in this. The similarity which the present plant bears to the genus Azorella, Gaud., is in many respects close; the mericarps of this are hardly "parallelim biscutata," whilst those of Azorella are scarcely didymous. Though a very remarkable habit runs through most of the species of the latter genus, one of them, the A. Ranunculus, D'Urv., not only differs from its congeners in form and mode of growth, but in these respects much resembles this plant. In the structure of the flower and fruit they totally differ, the former being truly an Azorella, and having the ciliated involucral leaves common to other species of that genus. The Az. daucoides, D'Urv. Fl. Ins. Mal. l.c. p. 613, is probably a true Caldasia, Lag.
Plate XI. fig. 1, flower; fig. 2, flower with the petals removed; fig. 3, petal; fig. 4, ripe fruit; fig. 5, transverse section of the same; fig. 6, front, and fig. 7, back view of seed; fig. 8, vertical section of the same showing the embryo; fig. 9, embryo removed:—all more or less magnified.
2. ANISOTOME, Hook. fil.
Flores dioici (seu polygami). Calycis margo 5-lobus; lobis (in flore steril.) patentibus, (in flore fert.) erectis, inæqualibus, persistentibus, 1–2 rarius 3 duplo longioribus lanceolatis, reliquis ovatis acutis. Petala obovata, acuta, v. acuminata, uninervia, brevissime unguiculata, patentia (lacinula inflexa nulla). Masc. Stamina' æqualia. Ovarium nullum. Stylopodia magna, depressa. Styli deficientes. Fœm. Fructus ovali-oblongus, lobis calycinis erectis coronatus. Mericarpia subteretia, inæqualia, quinquejuga; jugis alte carinatis alatis lateralibus marginantibus; unico (seminifero) jugis lateralibus dorsalique majoribus, altero (abortivo) jugis latera-libus dorsalique minoribus. Valleculæ univittatæ, vittæ crassiusculæ. Semen sulcatum, testa atro-fusca.—Herbæ subsucculentæ, elatæ, altitudinis humanæ, in insulis Auckland et Campbell provenientes. Caulis erectus, crassus, fistulosus, sulcatus. Folia maxima, longissime petiolata, bi-tripinnatisecta; segmentis latis vel angustis, mucronato-cuspidatis, marginatis. Petioli basi ventricoso-vaginantes. Umbellæ amplæ, pluries compositæ; vaginis maximis vix foliiferis bracteatis. Umbellulæ globose. Flores numerosissimi, rosei v. pallide purpurei. Involucra et involucella polyphylla, foliolis lanceolatis æqualibus.
1. Anisotome latifolia, Hook. fil.; foliis oblongis bipinnatisectis, segmentis obliquis ovato-oblongis imbricatis basi decurrentibus inæqualiter 3–5-fidis lobis acutis mucronato-aristatis pungentibus reticulatim venosis venis depressis, superioribus confluentibus. (Tab. VIII., and Tab. IX. & X. B.)
Hab. Lord Auckland's group and Campbell's Island; in moist places from the sea to the tops of the mountains, abundant.
This is certainty one of the noblest plants of the natural order to which it belongs, often attaining a height of six feet, and bearing several umbels of rose-coloured or purplish flowers, each compound umbel as large as the human head. The foliage is of a deep shining green, and the whole plant emits, when bruised, an aromatic smell. The female flowers I have only seen in a specimen gathered by Mr. Lyall in Campbell's Island. They are of a peculiar structure, and show a striking affinity between this plant and the Aciphylla squarrosa, Forst. (Hook. Icon. Pl. vol. vii. t. 607, 608), especially in the unequal mericarps. Both the male and female flowers vary in the size of the calycine segments, which are however constantly unequal, one or more being much the largest and longest. In the male the styles are reduced to mere points on the inner margin of the depressed purple stylopodia; in the female the latter organs are conical, and terminate in long stout recurved styles, capitate at the extremity: this structure is common to Aciphylla, according to Forster's figure (Genera, t. 6S). In the description of the genus I have described what may be considered the normal form of the fruit, but it is liable to much variation, and the five ridges are seldom fully developed in both mericarps. The five lobes of the calyx always give origin to as many larger ridges, and these again vary in size according to the number of large lobes: the most fully developed segment of the calyx, whether lateral or dorsal on the mericarp, always being opposite to the larger ridge. Very generally there are three large lobes to the calyx (of the female flower), one near the back of one mericarp, and two lateral on the other; that with three has then five ridges, two large lateral, one (also large dorsal), and two intermediate smaller: the mericarp with only one large lobe has only four ridges; two lateral (one of which is from the small lobe and largest of these two), the other very large, from the larger tooth. These mericarps are about two lines long, of a fuscous yellow colour, are obscurely glandular, and the vittæ extend through their whole length. The seed hangs loose in the cell, is small, and covered with a rather thick blackish testa; its sides have furrows corresponding to the valleculæ.
Plate VIII. A small flowering portion of the plant, with the limb of the leaf; Fig. 1, unexpanded male flower; fig. 2, the same expanded; fig. 3, calyx and stylopodia:—the dissections magnified.
Plate IX. & X. B. Fig. 1, partial umbel of ripe fruit of natural size; fig. 2, a single fruit removed from the umbel; fig. 3, transverse section of the same, showing the inequality of the mericarps, one of which is empty with five ridges, the other fertile with four ridges:—all the dissections magnified.
2. Anisotome antipoda; foliis lineari-oblongis tripinnatisectis segmentis teretibus divaricatis lineari-subulatis rigidis pungentibus striatis intus præsertim ad furcaturas transversim articulatis, rachibus superne canaliculars. (Tab. IX. & X.)—Ligusticum antipodum, Hombr. et Jacq. Voy. au Pol Sud, Bot. Phaner. tab. 3. sine descript.
Hab. Lord Auckland's group and Campbell's Island; in moist places especially near the sea, and in the former islands ascending to the mountain tops in a more stunted form.
A scarcely less handsome plant than the former, with which it agrees entirely in habit, and more particularly in the structure of the male flowers. The umbels are however less densely crowded, borne on longer peduncles, and produce fewer partial umbels and flowers. I was unfortunate in not being able to detect female flowers, nor have I seen any nearer approach to that state of the plant than the occasional presence, amongst the flowers of the ray, of stylopodia and styles analogous to those of the female of the former species. The fruit of this plant is represented in the 'Botany' of the French Voyage of Discovery quoted above, but in it the mericarps are figured as equal, and the vittæ are probably accidentally omitted; so very singular a character as the former may have been overlooked in the dry state of the plant; the glands, which are very obscure in the former species, are in this very large and apparently confined to one side of each mericarp: a remarkable similarity, however, exists in the furrowed seeds and in the stylopodia of the two species. The lamellæ in the fistular portion of the stem are not represented, and the sketch of the entire plant bears but a slight resemblance to the state in which we drew it.
In structure, the fructification of this genus is more closely allied to Aciphylla, Forst., than its general appearance would lead one to suppose. The figure of that plant (in the Icones Plant.) was taken from a specimen in fruit, the only state in which we possessed it previous to the arrival of Mr. Stephenson's New Zealand collection (vide Lond. Journ. of Bot. for September 1844), which contains small portions of apparently this plant (n. 81) in flower. In it the partial umbels are few-flowered, with the peduncles divaricating; they are borne on axillary branches, subtended by a sheathing, lanceolate, acuminated, pungent involucral leaf; towards the apex of the stem these branches are more crowded, and the involucral leaves are lengthened and become bifid or even trifid. The calycine segments are very small, broad, obtuse, and nearly equal in size. The petals (apparently pale yellow), though more incurved than in Anisotome, are scarcely furnished with an "inflexed lacinula"; the stamens, stylopodia and styles are very similar in the two genera. The female flowers are probably more densely aggregated than the male, and in the inflorescence of the former the involucral leaves may rapidly assume the curious form represented in the 'Icones,' or Mr. Stephenson's specimens may belong to a different species, for certainly their mode of inflorescence bears little resemblance to the dense cylindrical female spike of the A. squarrosa. Both these genera will naturally rank near Ligusticum, from which they are however very distinct, and may be considered as forming a small natural group. What I am inclined to consider as a third species of Anisotome is the Ligusticum anisatum, Banks and Sol. MSS. in Mus. Brit.; a plant discovered by Sir J. Banks and Dr. Solander in Queen Charlotte's Sound, and a fourth has been since gathered in Cook's Straits by Dr. Dieffenbach, and on the high mountain of Tongariro by Mr. Bidwill; both these gentlemen's specimens are male. The Angelica? rosæfolia, Hook. Ic. Plant, t. 581 (Ligusticum aromaticum, Banks and Sol. Ic. in Mus. Brit.), is also in some measure allied to these, though a plant of a very different habit; its calycine segments are decidedly unequal in size, and one of the two mericarps is often abortive.
In the three known species of Anisotome, all the parts connected with the inflorescence are subject to much irregular metamorphosis and monstrous development, the more important of which, as observed in the living plants of A. latifolia and A. antipoda, are the following:—1st, the segments of the partial involucra become shrivelled, assuming the forms of peduncles, and bear at their apices stylopodia with distorted calycine segments, or more perfect flowers with a reduced number of parts; or, in one case, a solitary one-celled anther, full of pollen, adnate on the face of the leaf, a little below its apex: 2nd, the peduncles themselves of the outer flowers become foliaceous, or by dividing show a tendency to a further compound state of the umbel; it also sometimes bears a single stamen at its apex, subtended by one large calycine segment: 3rd, the calycine segments vary from 2–6, but one or more are always so much larger than the others, as often to resemble involucral leaves: 4th, the petals are wanting, or vary from 1–6; sometimes two are combined into one; at others they assume various shapes: 5th, the stamens are equally variable in number; the filament is at times petaloid, or becomes forked and bears a second anther; these are constantly perfect and full of pollen: 6th, the stylopodia are always 2 or more, often 3, generally of the plane depressed form common to the male flowers; but the flowers of the ray sometimes bear 2–4 of entirely a different form, and similar to those of the fertile umbels; these are sometimes accompanied with stamens:—generally no numerical relation can be traced between the parts of these irregularly developed flowers. That such a relation however exists is demonstrable in a very distorted example, where a flower was furnished with 6 calycine segments, 3 very large and the others very small, 2 petals, 6 stamens, one of which bore two perfect anthers, and 2 stylopodia, in all 17 parts, the normal number in the ordinary state of the plant. Perhaps the most complex example was exhibited in one of the outer pedicels of a partial umbel, which was terminated by 4 stylopodia surrounded by a 5-toothed calyx, the latter subtended on one side by 4 linear, foliaceous, very imperfectly developed organs, each of them furnished at its apex with an obscure depression filled with yellow powder. It here appears to me that the apparent pedicel is the peduncle of a partial umbel bearing one sessile female flower, and that the three superadded foliaceous organs represent the pedicels of male flowers, which are reduced to as many foveæ containing pollen, a most rudimentary state of the male flower. I did not observe whether the stylopodia were internal or external in relation to the axis of the plant and the three supposed male pedicels; probably however the latter, as it is the flowers of the ray which generally bear female stylopodia.
Plate IX. & X. Fig. 1, flower; fig. 2, calyx with the petals removed; fig. 3, a petal; fig. 4. front, and 5. back view of stamens; figs. 6, 7, 8 and 9, portions of umbel and flowers distorted by monstrous development:—all magnified.