Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Great Island, Three Kings Group. Type: CHR, from plant figured by Oliver loc. cit.

Small widely branched tree to c. 4 m. tall; trunk single or several. Lvs c. 60–65 × 5.5–7 cm., mostly rather stiff though drooping in age, narrowed above base into short, hardly channelled petiole of c. ½ lamina-width or less; lamina similar on both surfaces, widest above middle; midrib obscure adaxially, more prominent abaxially, widened towards base; nerves fine, subequal, ± parallel but meeting midrib at appreciable angle. Peduncle to 1 cm. or more diam. Panicle to 80 cm. long, broad, branched to second or third order, branches well spaced; lower bracts green and foliaceous, sts lobed (perhaps only accidentally?); ultimate racemes c. 10–20 cm. long, c. 2 cm. diam. with fls on; axes visible between fls. Fls white or yellowish; per. c. 5–6 mm. long, tube c. 2 mm. long; tepals patent. Stamens c. = tepals; filaments rather long-connate, the free portion as broad as the anther and not much longer. Stigma shortly trifid. Fr. c. 4 mm. diam., globose, white. Seeds c. 3.5 mm. diam., glossy, deeply notched on one side. 2n = 38.

DIST.: Three Kings Islands, recorded from Great, South-west, and Northeast Islands,

Local endemic.

in forest and reaching canopy.

FL. 11. FT. 4–5.

"The specific name is that of one of the Three Kings, Kaspar, Melchior and Balthazar, after whom the group [of islands] was named by Tasman, who discovered it on Twelfth Night eve, 1643". Kaspar is not the name of any one of the islands.

C. kaspar does not seem to have been compared critically with the Norfolk Id sp., C. obtecta (Graham) Baker in J. Linn. Soc. (Bot.)  14,  1875,  543.