Flora of New Zealand Series

laburnum

Deciduous shrub or small tree to 7 m high; twigs densely clothed in appressed hairs, rounded, remaining green for several years. Lvs glabrous above, clothed in fine appressed hairs below, 3-foliolate; petioles mostly 30-70 mm long; leaflets elliptic, mucronate, (20)-30-60 mm long; terminal leaflet slightly > lateral leaflets; petiolules ± equal, 1-2 mm long. Infl. axillary, racemose, lax and pendulous, many-flowered; pedicels 5-15 mm long; bracteoles subtending calyx linear, 2-5 mm long, deciduous. Calyx densely clothed in appressed hairs, with 2 short lips. Corolla yellow, sometimes with dark markings, 15-20 mm long. Pod with appressed hairs, becoming almost glabrous when mature, oblong and flattened, 2-6-seeded, 40-70 mm long; sutures thickened; seeds black, c. 5 mm long.

N.: Ohakune Lakes Reserve (C. North Id); S.: Banks Peninsula, S. Canterbury, N. Otago.

C. and S. Europe 1904

Waste places, coastal forest, shrubland.

FL Sep-Nov.

Poisonous (Connor 1977).

Laburnum is cultivated as a garden ornamental and occasionally escapes. The closely related L. alpinum (Miller) Bercht. et J. S. Presl is also cultivated but is not naturalised. It is distinguished from L. anagyroides by its more or less glabrous twigs, lvs and peduncles, and winged pod sutures. Cvs, especially L. 'Vossi', which have been developed from hybrids between the 2 spp., are also grown. L. anagyroides has been previously known in N.Z. as L. vulgare and Cytisus laburnum.