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Volume I (1961) - Flora of New Zealand Indigenous Tracheophyta - Psilopsida, Lycopsida, Filicopsida, Gymnospermae, Dicotyledons
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Muehlenbeckia Meisn.

MUEHLENBECKIA Meissn., 1840

Type sp.: M. australis Meissn.

Plants dioec. or polygamous, in fascicles subtended by sheathing bracts; fascicles axillary, or in axillary or terminal spikes, racemes or panicles. Per. deeply 5-partite, or tepals united only at base. ♂ with 8 stamens, filaments filiform, anthers ovate in outline, pistil obsolescent. ♀ with trigonous ovary; styles 3; outer tepals often becoming enlarged, white, succulent, and enclosing the trigonous nutlike achene; staminodia thick to obsolete. Shrubs or woody lianes with alt. lvs and ochreate stipules. Genus of some 20 N.Z., Australian and S. American spp.

Key

1
Plant an erect divaricate shrub; achenes rugulose
1. astonii
Plant creeping or sprawling or lianoid; achenes smooth
2
2
Plant prostrate, or low-growing
3
Plant a liane, or forming large masses, with interlacing branchlets
4
3
Plant sprawling; lvs 0 or linear
2. ephedroides
Plant creeping, rooting at nodes; lvs of oblong to orbicular order
3. axillaris
4
Lvs mostly 2-8 cm. long; infl. a rather large panicle; ultimate branchlets us. Glab
4. australis
Lvs mostly not > 3 cm. long; infl. simple to a small panicle; ultimate branchlets pubescent
5. complexa

Macbride (Field Mus. nat. Hist. Publ. 244, Bot. ser. 4, 1927, 114-117) revived the genus Calacinum Raf. 1836 and made the necessary new combinations, but Muehlenbeckia has since been conserved.

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