Flora of New Zealand Series

Erect, dense, glabrous, evergreen or semi-evergreen shrub, to 3.5 m tall, lacking black glands; rhizomes 0. Shoots reddish, terete or slightly 2-angled below infl. Lvs subsessile, 3.5-10 × 0.7-3 cm, ovate or elliptic-ovate, glaucescent and dotted with pellucid glands below; apex obtuse or mucronulate. Panicles terminal, up to 12-flowered; pedicels usually 1-3 cm long. Sepals somewhat unequal, 6-12 mm long, broad-ovate or suborbicular, moderately accrescent, eglandular, obtuse or rounded, sometimes mucronulate, entire. Corolla 4.5-7 cm diam., golden, ± saucer-shaped; petals broad-obovate to suborbicular, rather irregular, much > sepals. Stamens ?-1/2 length of petals, in 5 bundles. Styles 5, c. 1/2-(⅔) length of ovary. Capsule 1.2-1.5 cm long excluding persistent styles, ovoid, dry. Seeds c. 1-3 mm long, flattened and ± oblong, longitudinally lined, mostly abortive.

S.: Westport to Franz Joseph.

W. China 1958

Occasional cultivation escape, roadsides, waste places, scrub, forest margins.

FL Jan-Mar.

A fl. of H. henryi is illustrated in Fig. 54. It is still grown in N.Z., but has been largely replaced in cultivation by a related taxon which is probably H. × cyathiflorum Robson   cv. 'Gold Cup' although it is usually known as H. leschenaultii [ see Robson, N. K. B., J . Roy. Hort. Soc. 95: 482-497 (1970)]. Unlike H. henryi, cv. 'Gold Cup' flowers for most of the year and has larger cup-shaped corollas, 5-7 cm diam. N.Z. plants are referable to subsp. henryi (N. K. B. Robson, pers. comm.) and not subsp. hancockii Robson as recorded previously ( Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.) Bot. 12: 163-325 (1985)).

H. henryi has been previously recorded in N.Z. as H. hookeranum.