Flora of New Zealand Series

Perennial herb. Stems hairy, climbing by twining petioles. Petioles to 3 cm long, slender, hairy. Lamina 5-7.5 × 5-7.5 cm, triangular-ovate, hairy, strongly dentate with mucronate teeth and a small basal lobe on each side; base cordate; apex slender, acute. Pedicels > petioles. Calyx c. 2 cm long, hairy, especially on lobes; lobes lanceolate or narrow-ovate, mucronate, c. 3/4 length of tube. Corolla c. 7 cm long; lobes deep pink; throat paler; tube slightly swollen at base, with longitudinal hairy bands inside and hairy ring above base; lobes rounded, somewhat 2-lipped. Lower stamens c. = corolla tube. Capsule c. 1.5 cm diam., globose. Seeds covered with finger-like reticulate appendages; wing broad, fimbriate, lacerate.

N.: apparently only wild on Rangitoto Id near Auckland.

E. Mexico 1981

Thriving on almost soilless lava under trees for many years without increasing markedly; presumably an escape from cultivation.

FL Jan-Mar.

A fl. of L. erubescens is illustrated in Fig. 110. This sp. has previously been recorded in N.Z. as Asarina erubescens (D. Don) Pennell, but in reassessing generic limits in this part of the Schropulariaceae, Elisens, W. J., Syst. Bot. Monogr. 5: 1-97 (1985), considered that Asarina Miller is confined to the Old World and accepted Lophospermum for this group of N. and C. American spp. L. erubescens has also been known in N.Z. as Maurandya erubescens.

Within the small group of genera to which Lophospermum and Asarina belong the commonest sp. in cultivation here is Maurandya barclaiana Lindley. This scrambling or climbing herb is also from Mexico; it sometimes seeds prolifically and occasionally grows spontaneously in gardens. Its hastate lvs are smaller than those of L. erubescens and the fls are smaller and usually violet.