Flora of New Zealand Series

Branched, evergreen shrub to small tree up to 6 m high; twigs sericeous, particularly when young, rounded and ribbed. Lvs sericeous on both surfaces but more densely below, petiolate, 3-foliolate; leaflets shortly petiolulate, elliptic to obovate, acute and shortly mucronate, 5-40 × 3-12 mm; terminal leaflet > lateral leaflets; stipules triangular, up to 2 mm long. Infls elongate, with axis 10-130 mm long, terminal, racemose, 10-30-(40)-flowered; pedicels 2-6 mm long. Calyx densely hairy, bilabiate; upper lip deeply 2-fid; lower lip shortly 3-lobed. Corolla yellow, 13-16-(18) mm long; standard glabrous or somewhat hairy about midvein and apex. Pod densely villous, oblong, 3-10-seeded, 20-40 mm long; seeds black, orbicular and flattened, c. 3 mm diam.

N.: Auckland City, Gisborne City, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Wellington City and coastal S.W. Wellington Province; S.: Tai Tapu (Canterbury), Otago Peninsula.

Canary Is 1940

Dry waste places, coastal cliffs.

FL Jul-Apr.

T. stenopetala is only locally established as a garden escape. It has been previously known in N.Z. as Cytisus stenopetalus.

Allan (1940) gave C. maderensis Mansf. as a synonym of C. stenopetalus; T. maderensis is a distinct sp., but it is clear from Allan's description that T. stenopetala is the sp. he recorded. T. maderensis is similar to T. stenopetala but has persistent stipules 2.5-4 mm long, which give a scaly appearance to older twigs; the racemes are terminal, 5-15-flowered, and 15-35 mm long.

Some naturalised plants with shorter, fewer-flowered racemes (the axis c. 10-30 mm long), but otherwise similar to T. stenopetala, are probably of horticultural origin and may be the plant usually called Cytisus × spachianus. Bean, W. J., Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles 1, ed. 8 (1970), noted that this plant is believed to be a hybrid between T.canariensis and T. stenopetala, but it has also been treated as var. spachiana (Webb) M. del Arco of T. stenopetala. Although these naturalised plants exactly match descriptions of the horticultural hybrid, it also seems possible that they are hybrids between T. monspessulana and T. stenopetala; certainly T. stenopetala is one of the parents, and in some areas T. stenopetala appears to intergrade with the hybrid. Such plants have been collected from waste places and coastal cliffs in Auckland City, Palmerston North, Wellington City, and coastal areas of S.W. Wellington Province, Sumner, and Otago Peninsula.