Flora of New Zealand Series

Perennial herb or subshrub up to 60 cm tall; stems woody below, erect or ascending; branches usually leafy with small axillary branchlets, ± uniformly or sometimes bifariously hairy with short crisped white hairs. Lvs with petiole 1-4 mm long. Lamina 5-15-(25) × 3-10 mm, ± rhomboid to ovate or suborbicular with 1-3 pairs of obtuse to subacute teeth and acute to obtuse triangular terminal lobe, glabrous. Fls on pedicels 1-3-(6) mm long. Calyx 4-8 mm long, glabrous or nearly so, divided with deepest clefts to 1/2 way. Corolla white, 15-20 mm long. Anthers red-brown, conspicuously hairy; awns usually markedly unequal, the lower 2 very long. Capsule distinctly > calyx, 6-8-(10) × 2-3 mm.

N.; S.: from East Cape to Marlborough Sounds, also Canterbury (Lake Ellesmere).

Endemic.

Open rocky places, streamsides and scrub, sea level to 1500 m.

FL Jan-Apr-(Jun).