Flora of New Zealand Series

Dense evergreen shrub up to c. 1 m high; stems prostrate or decumbent and often quite stout near base; young shoots with scattered deciduous hairs, becoming rigid, dark and reddish. Lvs in fascicles or on short shoots scattered along branches; petiole 0-3 mm long; blade ± obovate to elliptic, 5-10-(14) × 2-4-(6) mm, somewhat thick and coriaceous, obtuse to shallowly emarginate, cuneate, glabrous, dark green, and glossy above but becoming ± wrinkled when dry, very finely tomentose below and appearing glaucous-white; margins slightly recurved; stipules linear-lanceolate, glabrous or glabrate except on margins. Fls scattered along branches, solitary or occasionally paired, almost sessile. Sepals 1.3-2 mm long, triangular, with scattered, fine, white hairs; apex acute. Petals patent, 3-5 mm diam., orbicular or suborbicular, white. Fr. broadly oblong-obovate or depressed globose, 6-11 mm diam., deep rose or crimson, sometimes drying ± orange-red.

N.: Auckland City, scattered through hill country from Taranaki and Hawke's Bay southwards; S.: Nelson (Maitai Valley), Westland (Kotuku), Canterbury (Montgomery Reserve on Banks Peninsula, Rangitata Valley), Otago (Cromwell).

Himalayas, S.W. China 1940

Scrub, pasture, streamsides, especially in steep and well-grazed areas up to c. 600 m.

FL Sep-Dec FT Jan-May.

C. integerrimus Medikus was recorded from Wellington by Allan (1940). Healy, A. J., Trans. Roy. Soc. N.Z. 77: 179 (1948), noted that he had been unable to trace the specimens on which the record was based, but had examined specimens of Cotoneaster collected from Wellington late in 1940, and which, it was presumed, were typical of the plant on which the record was founded. These had been identified as C. integerrimus but were actually typical C. microphyllus.  C. integerrimus is not known in cultivation in N.Z.

C. horizontalis Decne. has been recorded as spreading in pastures at Tiritea Valley [Esler, A. E., Botany of the Manawatu District, New Zealand (1978)]. The voucher specimen has since been correctly redetermined by Esler as C. microphyllus. However, in cultivation C. horizontalis is now much more common than C. microphyllus. This Chinese sp. is easily distinguished from C. microphyllus by its strongly distichous branching system, deciduous habit, ± suborbicular lvs and ± erect, pinkish fls.

Another and closely related sp. which has to some extent replaced C. microphyllus in cultivation is C. conspicuus Marquand. It differs from C. microphyllus in having abundant, scarlet frs and the lvs hairy but green on the undersurface.