Flora of New Zealand Series

C. buddleioides var. β Hook. f. Fl. N.Z. 1, 1853, 98.

Type: K, Travers 34. Type of C. buddleioides var. β : K, Dieffenbach.

Shrub or tree up to 6 m. tall; branches rather stout; bark dark, rough. Lvs alt., coriac.; lamina 4-8 × 1·5-3·5 cm., on stout petiole up to c. 1 cm. long; shade lvs sts up to 15 × 4·5 cm.; fully exposed lvs sts reduced to 2.5 cm. long; obovate-cuneate to broad-oblanceolate to elliptic-oblong, apiculate. Racemes c. 3 cm. long, axillary; fls up to 1 cm. diam. Calyx-segs ovate-attenuate, c. 3 mm. long; petals bright yellow, 5-6 mm. long, lanceolate-oblong, acute. Fr. nearly 1 cm. long, red.

DIST.: Ch. Forest and forest margins.

HYBRIDISM

Where C. buddleioides and C. cotoneaster grow in company, complex hybrid swarms are often met with. Fr. is sts produced, but the viability of the seeds has not been tested, though it seems certain that many wild plants of a hybrid population belong to the F2 generation. Some forms are illustrated by Allan in Genetica 8, 1926, 373. Carse, when describing the mid-forms as C. Cheesemanii in T.N.Z.I. 45, 1913, 276, says: "This description applies to the type specimens, but the plant appears to pass by regular gradations into C. cotoneaster on the one hand, and into C. buddleioides on the other, with a tendency in one form to a broadening of the leaves bringing the species very close to the Chatham Island C. macrocarpa." Turrill described his C. virgata in Bot. Mag. 138, 1912, t. 8466, from a plant growing in the Temperate House at Kew, raised from cuttings of uncertain origin sent from the office of the Gardeners' Chronicle. It matches fairly well with wild plants occurring in the hybrid swarms, and the cuttings may have been taken from a garden plant raised from seed sent from N.Z. C. virgata, as seen at Kew, is a pleasing form well worthy of cultivation.