Flora of New Zealand Series

Chinese forget-me-not

Annual or biennial herb to c. 60 cm high. Stems and lvs densely clothed in fine grey hairs (appearing greenish in shade); hairs minutely bulbous-based, sometimes ± appressed. Basal lvs to c. 25 cm long; petiole to 10 cm long; lamina elliptic-lanceolate or elliptic-oblong; base attenuate or winged; apex obtuse, mucronate; cauline lvs smaller and sessile towards infl. Cymes tomentose; pedicels downward curving at fruiting. Calyx 2-3 mm long, to c. 5 mm long at fruiting, tomentose, broadly ovate or oblong-ovate. Corolla tube 2-3 mm long; limb 7-12 mm diam., bright blue (occasionally pink or white in cultivation); lobes suborbicular; scales deep blue, 2-lobed, slightly cucullate (more evident in dried material). Stamens inserted below scales; filaments very short; anthers c. 1 mm long. Nutlets obliquely attached to gynobasic style, 3-5 mm long, broadly ovate to sub-orbicular, with glochidia covering back and confluent at the base around margin to form a crest.

N.: a cultivation escape in warmer areas, especially N. Auckland (Kerikeri, and north of Kaukapakapa and Helensville), Bay of Plenty (near Kawerau); S.: around Christchurch; K.: Raoul, naturalised along 1 km of rough road for many years.

W. China 1975

Waste places, roadsides.

FL Jan-Dec.

The sp. is illustrated in Fig. 40. Stapf and Drummond (op. cit.) noted that this sp. is most closely related to the Himalayan C. furcatum Wallich, but N.Z. plants, as well as those of C. amabile grown from imported European seed, seem to resemble more closely C. javanicum (Lehm.) Thunb. from Java and Sumatra. The corolla scales are said to be plane in C. amabile and cucullate in C. javanicum, but this character probably varies with the condition and age of the fl.