Flora of New Zealand Series

Small annual herb, not forming mats or clumps; stems simple, to 3 cm long, slender, ± erect, not rooting at nodes; branches few and mainly from the base. Lvs connate at base, 2.5-4 × 0.8-1.5 mm, lanceolate, elliptic- lanceolate, or ovate-lanceolate, flattened above, ± convex beneath; apex acuminate or apiculate. Fls in small cymose clusters in lf axils, 5-merous, apparently not star-like, 2-3 mm diam., sessile or subsessile at anthesis; pedicel to 2 mm long at fruiting. Calyx lobes c. 1.5 × 0.5 mm, lanceolate to ovate, long-acuminate. Petals c. 1.5 × 0.2 mm, lanceolate, probably reddish green with a red tip, aristate, ± = calyx. Scales not seen. Follicles with tuberculate appendages on outer surface towards base. Seed c. 0.4 mm long.

S.: Awatere R. and Wither Hills (Marlborough).

Also indigenous to temperate and arid Australia.

Stony river terrace, poor and rather open tussock grassland.

FL Sep-Feb.

C. colorata is only known in N.Z. from 2 collections made in the 1940s. C. tetramera is common in the same area; almost certainly C. colorata still grows there but has been mistaken for C. tetramera, as is also the case in Australia (Toelken, H. R., J. Adelaide Bot. Gard. 3, 1: 81 (1981)). Superficially the 2 spp. look remarkably similar but the 5-merous fls and tuberculate follicles distinguish C. colorata upon closer inspection. The presence of a cluster of tuberculate appendages towards the base of the outer follicle surface also means that the N.Z. plants belong to var. acuminata (Reader) Tölken. This sp. was not included by Allan (1961), but was considered to be indigenous to N.Z. and recorded as var. tuberculata Tölken by Druce and Sykes (1987, op. cit.). Although treated here as indigenous C. colorata was possibly introduced to N.Z.