Flora of New Zealand Series

red cestrum

Shrub 2-4 m high; shoots and petioles densely covered in purplish hairs. Petiole to 2 cm long. Lamina 4-10 × 1.5-5 cm (to at least 16 × 7 cm on vegetative shoots), ovate, elliptic or lanceolate, hairy, densely so beneath; base cuneate to rounded; apex acute or short-acuminate. Infl. paniculate, dense; branches purple, hairy; fls subsessile to shortly pedicellate, scentless. Calyx c. 7 mm long, purple, usually glabrous outside; teeth 1-4 mm long, triangular, acute or short-acuminate, ± ciliate. Corolla 1.8-2.5 cm long, rosy magenta to deep crimson; tube funnelform with narrow-cylindric base and constricted apex, glabrous, shining; lobes 1-3 mm long, ± hairy outside, glabrous inside, short-acuminate. Fr. apparently uncommon, to 2 × 1.5 cm, obovoid, glossy crimson.

N.: Clevedon (S. Auckland), Hunua Range (Franklin County), Stratford area (Taranaki); S.: Pelorus Sound (Marlborough), and around Karamea (Buller County).

Mexico 1958

Forest margins, modified scrub.

FL Jan-Dec.

Poisonous (Connor 1977).

A fl. of C. elegans is illustrated in Fig. 111. It is commonly cultivated in warmer areas and occasionally escapes. It has previously been known in N.Z. as C. purpureum.