Flora of New Zealand Series

Type: W, "Herb. Colonial Museum, Chatham Islands, W. Travers".

Lower lvs elliptic to obovate-oblong, submembr., coarsely doubly dentate, 4-6 × 1-2 cm., including petiole up to 1·5 cm. long; upper lvs similar but subsessile, auriculate. Capitula c. 8 mm. long, 7 mm. diam.; phyll. up to 7 mm. long; achenes 2-2.5 mm. long, subcompressed; pappus-hairs c. 5 mm. long.

DIST.: Ch.

E. pumila J. B. Armst. in T.N.Z.I. 13, 1881, 338. "A small slender herb 2-4 inches high, simple or sparingly branched, annual. Radical leaves few, 1/6-? inch long, petiolate ciliate, puberulous or glabrous, spathulate or oblong, obtuse, coarsely toothed or lobulate or entire . . . Scapes extremely slender, hairy or scabrid, with a single terminal head . . . Heads 1/3 inch long, 1/4 inch wide. Involucral scales 8-10 . . . Achenes 1/12 inch long, linear, hispid, indistinctly grooved. Hab. McKenzie Country.-Mr. J. F. Armstrong, December, 1877." Of uncertain status; perhaps correctly referred by Kirk (Stud. Fl. 1899, 334) to E. scaberula as "merely a starved state".

Belcher (loc. cit. 41, 66, 70) distinguishes var. hispidulus and var. scaberulus thus: var. hispidulus -hairs on upper lf-surface with subtuberculate bases; achenes 1·5-1·75 mm. long; var. scaberulus -hairs on upper lf-surface without subtuberculate bases; achenes 1·75-2 mm. long. His citation of N.Z. specimens of var. hispidulus is: "Coromandel, Petrie (K,2). SOUTH ISLAND: without specific data, ex Hb. T. Kirk (F). Bay of Islands, U.S. Expl. Exped. (US, aspect of var. hispidulus, but only 8 phyllaries, depauperate, leaf bases non-auriculate, leaves oblong or ovate-lanceolate)." Of var. hispidulus he concludes "adventive in New Zealand to some extent. The specimens from Coromandel, for example, were sent to Kew by Petrie with a note saying that they were new to the island. The determination at Kew was: 'E. scaberula with slightly different achenes'!"