Flora of New Zealand Series

Leaves ± strongly asymmetrical, obliquely truncate, 4(6)-lobed, divided to 0.5–0.65 (median sinus); leaf lobes narrowly acute, the two dorsal lobes ± paired, separated by a narrow, rather deep sinus (less than 45°); disc 12–15 cells high at dorsal sinus, 4–7 cells high at ventral sinus, the ventral sinus often ± reflexed; leaf margins occasionally 1–2-dentate; median disc cells 18–25(28) µm wide; underleaf lobes slenderly acuminate, at times only 2–3 cells wide at base.

Distribution and Ecology : Amphi-Pacific-temperate. Macquarie Island; New Zealand: Campbell Island, Auckland Islands, Stewart Island (70–530 m), South Island (300–1370 m), North Island (60–1390 m), Chatham Islands; Australia: Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales; Kerguelen Island, Marion and Prince Edward Islands, Falkland Islands, southern South America, Juan Fernandez Islands. In New Zealand known from Fiordland, Otago, Westland, Canterbury, Sounds–Nelson, Volcanic Plateau, Gisborne, Auckland and Northland EPs.

In New Zealand var. laevifolia typically ranges from middle-elevation forests to the penalpine zone, and is able to tolerate considerable exposure. However, it may be present in lower-elevation forests, and extends as far north as Radar Bush (WSW of Cape Reinga, 100 m), where it occurs on rotted, decorticated logs in forests of Beilschmiedia – Vitex – Hoheria and Cyathea dealbata. Also present in the Kiwanis Reserve (S of Kaitaia, ca. 60–80 m) on Rhopalostylis sapida in mixed broadleaf forest dominated by Beilschmiedia and Vitex, with Rhopalostylis, Coprosma, Dacrycarpus dacrydioides and Hoheria. The variety, however, is less common below 300 m. In forests it occurs on shaded, moist cliff faces and boulders, soil banks (including banks of roadcuts through the forest, and here at times mixed with Breutelia elongata), rotted logs, and, occasionally, over bark. It is rather common on the floor and loosely on bark at the bases of Leptospermum scoparium in the Otupaka Stream frost flats southwest of Minginui. In penalpine situations it occurs on soil under and in between tussocks (at times where the tussock base is rotted), under shrub cover, in boulder fields, on cliff faces (where sometimes forming sheets) and on clayey banks. In boggy sites it may occur among Sphagnum, and then the shoots are often quite straggly.