Oxera
(from oxeros, sour; in allusion to the acrid taste). SYN. Oncoma. ORD. Verbenaceae. A genus embracing ten species of glabrous, often climbing, stove shrubs, natives of New Caledonia. Flowers whitish or yellowish-white, pedicellate, rather large; calyx four or five-cleft, or rarely sinuate-toothed; corolla limb fourcleft; perfect stamens two, long-exserted; bracts usually small; cymes dichotomous, pedunculate in the upper axils, or disposed in a terminal, trichotomous panicle. Leaves opposite, entire, coriaceous. Only one species has been introduced. It thrives in good, rich, loamy soil, and may be increased by cuttings.
O. pulchella (pretty). fl., calyx of four green sepals, 1/2in. to 3/4in. long; corolla yellowish or faintly greenish-white, 2in. long, between funnel and bell-shaped, the lobes broadly oblong; cymes many-flowered. December. l. 2in. to 5in. long, petiolate; upper ones oblong, obtuse or sub-acute; lower ones longer, oblong-lanceolate, obtusely acuminate, entire or with shallow crenatures. 1886. A handsome climber. (B. M. 6938; G. C. ser. iii., vol. iii., p. 209; Gn. xxxiii., 510; J. H. xvi., 1888, p. 87.)
