Flora of New Zealand Series

Primary root short-lived; adventitious roots numerous from amongst old lf bases. Stem short, simple, clothed with copious long fine hairs. Lvs radical, rosulate and usually forming a close flat mat; petiole short, broad. Lamina 5-50 × 3-20 mm, narrowly to broadly elliptic or somewhat rhombic, subcoriaceous, with scattered to dense, long, curled septate hairs or nearly glabrous, especially beneath; lateral veins 2, usually inconspicuous; margin entire or with inconspicuous teeth, mostly ciliate; base attenuate; apex broad and ± obtuse. Scape c. 0.5-8-(17) cm long, sparsely to densely pilose. Spike 1-8-(20)-flowered, to c. 1-(2.5) cm long. Bracts 1.5-2.5-(5) mm long, ovate, glabrous or nearly so; keel raised, rather wide, herbaceous, otherwise bract membranous. Sepals 2-3.5 mm long, elliptic-oblong or ovate-oblong, glabrous; keel distinct. Corolla tube short; lobes 1.2-1.8 × 0.4-0.8 mm, narrow-ovate or ovate. Capsule 2-3 mm long, ± suborbicular to broad-ellipsoid. Seeds 4- c. 14, 1-2 mm long, rather irregular in shape.

N.: Mt Hikurangi and mountains southwards; S.: mountains of N.W. Nelson and southwards, especially E. of the Main Divide; St.: Mt Anglem.

Also indigenous to New Guinea.

Herbfield, especially rocky places and alpine grassland.

FL Dec-Feb.

P. novae-zelandiae L. Moore, in Allan (1961), is here considered to be conspecific with P. lanigera. P. novae-zelandiae was said to be distinguished by the less hairy and generally larger lvs, and the generally longer scape. None of these characters consistently separate 2 distinct entities.

There is also considerable overlap in the distributions given for the 2 spp., and the 2 entities may occur in the same population. In a mixed population in the Craigieburn Mountains, Canterbury, plants referable to P. lanigera sens. strict. were found to have 8-12 seeds per capsule whereas plants referable to P. novae-zelandiae had only 3-5, larger and more irregularly shaped seeds (J. Spence, pers. comm.). Examination of limited herbarium material indicates that this difference may occur elsewhere. A further complication is that chromosome numbers of 2 n = 12 (as in P. lanigera sens. strict.) and 2 n = 24 have been recorded for P. novae-zelandiae (Groves, B. E. and Hair, J. B., New Zealand J. Bot. 9: 569-575 (1971). A thorough study of the P. lanigera complex is needed to determine whether or not more than one taxon is involved.

P. uniflora is also very similar to P. lanigera, and forms of P. lanigera with a very reduced scape and spikes of 1-3 fls, that also have rather narrow, entire lvs, are sometimes difficult to distinguish from P. uniflora. However, the lvs of P. uniflora are somewhat darker green, less hairy and usually more toothed, and the scape is scarcely elongated at anthesis.