Flora of New Zealand Series

Small annual or perennial herb forming small, rather loose clumps; stems usually decumbent, rooting at lower nodes in moist conditions, sometimes obviously erect and ascending 1-2 cm, much-branched. Lvs connate at base, 1.7-3 × 1-1.2 mm, c. 0.8 mm thick, ovate-elliptic, flattened above, convex beneath; apex obtuse or subacute. Fls solitary in lf axils, not star-like, 4-merous, 1.2-1.8 mm diam.; pedicels < 1 mm long at anthesis, elongating up to 3-(4) mm long at fruiting. Calyx lobes 0.8-1 × c. 0.4 mm, triangular-lanceolate, acute or subacute. Petals 0.7-1 × c. 0.4 mm, ovate, greenish with deep pink tips, acuminate, usually slightly < calyx, occasionally ± = calyx. Scales c. 0.25 mm long, very narrowly spathulate. Follicles smooth. Seed 0.4-0.45 mm long.

N.: Egmont coast (Taranaki), coastal Wairarapa, Aorangi Range (Wellington area); S.: Stephens Id (Marlborough), Motunau Id (N. Canterbury), Christchurch, upper Taieri R., Nugget Point and Dunedin (coastal Otago), Middlemarch (C. Otago).

Endemic.

Open rocky and stony sites, short herbfield, lake margins, river banks.

FL Sep-Mar.

C. mataikona has recently appeared as a naturalised weed in Dunedin and Christchurch. It was treated as Tillaea debilis Hook. f. by Allan and was incorrectly transferred to Crassula as C. debilis (Hook. f.) A. Druce et Given in 1985, this specific epithet being preoccupied in Crassula.