Flora of New Zealand Series

Small perennial herb forming small to large and extensive loose mats; stems prostrate, rooting at nodes, with very slightly ascending tips, much-branched. Lvs connate at base, 1.3-5 × 0.4-1 mm, 0.2-0.4 mm thick, lanceolate, linear- lanceolate, or elliptic-lanceolate, flattened or slightly concave above, convex beneath; apex sharply acute, shortly acuminate or apiculate. Fls solitary in lf axils, star-like, 4-merous, 1.8-2.5 mm diam.; pedicels 0.5-1 mm long, scarcely elongating at fruiting. Calyx lobes 0.8-1 × 0.4-0.6 mm, triangular or triangular-ovate, acute. Petals 1-1.3 × 0.5-0.7 mm, ovate or triangular-ovate, white or pink-flushed, acute or sharply acute, slightly > calyx. Scales c. 0.5 mm long, ± cuneate. Follicles smooth. Seed c. 0.5 mm long.

N.: lower Ruamahanga R. near Lake Wairarapa (Wairarapa), southern Wellington coasts, Wellington City; S.: Westland, Fiordland, Canterbury Plains, Otago Peninsula, Dunedin, Southland.

Endemic.

Very local and scattered, damp ground on stream banks under trees, damp forest clearings and margins, also a bowling green weed.

FL Nov-Feb.

This sp. was treated as Tillaea acutifolia Kirk by Allan (1961) and was incorrectly transferred to Crassula as C. acutifolia (Kirk) A. Druce et Given in 1985, this specific epithet being preoccupied in Crassula.