Nemesia floribunda Lehm.
Annual or possibly short-lived perennial. Stems to c. 30 cm tall, glabrous. Lvs glabrous; petioles 3-20 mm long. Lamina 1.5-6.5 × 1-2.5 cm, ovate, coarsely and irregularly serrate; base truncate, rounded or subcordate, with blade sometimes shortly attenuate; apex acute. Infl. sub-corymbose; bracts linear, mostly entire, the lowest distantly serrate. Pedicels slender, to 2 cm long, ± glandular. Sepals 3-4 mm long, lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate; margins often ciliate. Corolla 8-11 mm long, white; spur c. 6-7 mm long, obtuse; upper lip with rounded lobes; lower lip slightly emarginate, broad; pouch yellow and composed of dense glandular puberulence. Capsule 10-12 × 6-8 mm, broadly urceolate-oblong; base rounded; valves diverging at an obtuse angle. Seed c. 1 mm long, fusiform; wing broad, suborbicular.
S.: Dunedin area.
South Africa 1958
In and around scrub, forest margins, sometimes common.
FL Feb-Sep.
The N.Z. specimens differ from the illustration and description of N. floribunda in Bot. Reg. 24: t. 39 (1838) which shows ovate bracts and sessile upper lvs, but match descriptions in South African Floras.
N. strumosa Benth. is a very common annual bedding plant in N.Z. It has sessile or subsessile lvs and much larger and usually more brightly coloured fls with the corolla tube gibbous instead of spurred. There are no reports of it being wild.
