Flora of New Zealand Series

creeping willow herb

Loosely matted, creeping, stem-rooting herb forming patches up to 1 m across. Stems a distinctive pale purplish blue, with strigillose hairs running down the lines decurrent from petiole margins. Lamina of lf broadly ovate to suborbicular, 3-13 × 3-11 mm. Floral tube 0.4-1.1 mm deep, sparsely strigillose outside. Petals white, 1.9-3.4 × 1.7-2.1 mm. Capsule densely grey-strigillose, (1)-1.5-4 cm long; fruiting pedicel 2.3-12.5 cm long.

N.: throughout; S.: Nelson and E. areas; St.; Ch.

Endemic.

Cliffs, banks, rocky and stony riverbeds, coastal slopes, talus, also along roadsides, railways and street gutters, waste places in and around habitations, gardens, sea level to 300-(900) m.

FL Aug-Apr.

Raven and Raven suggested that E. nummulariifolium has been spread S. form northern North Id areas by human activities. Certainly, it now usually grows in very modified habitats and is often a serious weed in gardens, particularly in rock gardens, glasshouses and amongst pot plants. From other prostrate willow herbs with creeping stems and roundish lvs it is usually distinguished by the purplish margin of the lf lamina. In addition to plants included under E. nummulariifolium, plants treated by Allan (1961) as E. caespitosum are referred by Raven and Raven to E. nummulariifolium.