Flora of New Zealand Series

hazel pomaderris

Erect shrub to c. 3 m high. Shoots with ferruginous, stellate tomentum when young. Petiole to 2 cm long on adult lvs, stellate-tomentose. Lamina 45-150 × 20-55 mm on flowering shoots (sometimes larger on juvenile and vegetative shoots), ovate or ovate-elliptic, sometimes narrowly elliptic; upper surface nearly always glabrous, somewhat rugose with veins impressed; lower surface densely clothed in sessile stellate hairs, but with interveinal areas with green surface always showing when mature and midrib veins ferruginously tomentose; margins crenulate to denticulate; apex rounded or obtuse; stipules 5-12 mm long, subulate, soon deciduous. Infl. a large, terminal, much-branched, stellate-tomentose panicle to c. 20 cm long. Calyx lobes 1-1.5 mm long, green, glabrous within, reflexing. Petals 0. Anthers oblong. Ovary with terminal tuft of white, stellate, long-rayed hairs, wholly immersed in calyx tube at anthesis, c. 1/2 immersed at fruiting. Fr. c. 2 mm diam., globular, blackish; cocci opening by opercula occupying > 3/4 of their inner faces.

N.: Parahaki Hill (near Whangarei), Napier area, near Mt Holdsworth (Tararua Range); S.: Ruby Bay (Nelson), Banks Peninsula, C. and S. Canterbury.

S.E. and S. Australia 1961

Shrubberies, plantations, forest remnants, especially margins.

FL Oct-Dec.

P. aspera is cultivated in lowland N.Z. except in colder areas. It has often been confused with the related P. apetala here as well as in Australia, but the degree of lamina hairiness readily distinguishes the 2 spp. Although the natural range of P. apetala seems to be only a small stretch of the North Id W. coast, it has escaped from cultivation in several places in regions where P. aspera grows.