Flora of New Zealand Series

Vigorous vine; young shoots angular, downy. Lvs 3-lobed; petioles 1-3 cm long, white-lanate, with (2)-4-8 glands almost hidden in indumentum; stipules pinnate with dark filiform segments almost to the base of the very narrow-linear rachis; lamina lobes 5-9 cm long, extending ?-3/4 distance in from margin; middle lobe largest, 3-8 × 1.5-3 cm, lanceolate to elliptic-ovate, dentate, grey- or white-tomentose below, glabrate above except when young, dark shining green, ± rugose, acute or mucronate. Fls ⚥, solitary. Pedicels much > petioles, hairy. Bracts free, 1.5-2.3 cm long, ovate, hairy or glabrate outside, serrate with teeth setose. Hypanthium (4)-4.5-5 cm long, tomentulose. Sepals 3-4.8 cm long, elliptic, green outside, with tomentulose band, white or very pale pink inside, with short horn near apex; petals similar to sepals but all pink; corona threads violet-blue, c. 1/2 perianth. Filaments 1.3-1.7 cm long, much > anthers; anthers 6-9 mm long. Ovary white-villous. Fr. 4-7 cm diam., globose or depressed globose, yellow, tomentulose; pulp sweet and edible, orange. Seeds 5-6 mm long, ellipsoid-ovoid, dark brown or dark red, alveolate.

S.: Banks Peninsula (widespread), Otago (Palmerston).

N. Andes 1982

Cultivation escape; scrub and forest margins.

FL Jan-Dec.

On Banks Peninsula this is the commonest sp. in the Tacsonia group. It has been previously recorded in N.Z. as Tacsonia pinnatistipula.