Flora of New Zealand Series

Leaves with lobes gradually tapering, (3)4–5(6) cells wide at base, 2 or more cells wide for most of their length (even on weak, juvenile stems); lobes relatively abruptly narrowed distally, usually 12–17 cells long; lobe margins usually freely spinose-dentate toward base (except miniature juvenile leaves); disc margin rarely with accessory teeth so conspicuously lobe-like that the leaf is seemingly 5–6-lobed; surface feebly to distinctly roughened; gynoecial bracts narrowly obtrapezoidal-cuneiform, the disc no wider than long, the long-acuminate lobes with 5–9 pairs of spinose teeth each, the apical uniseriate cilium shorter than the remainder of lobe below.

Distribution and Ecology : Amphi-Pacific temperate. New Zealand: Campbell Island (70 m), South Island (700–1140 m) and in the mountains of North Island (1280–1520 m); in the American sector in southern South America and the Falkland Islands. Also in the Subantarctic on Kerguelen Islands, Crozet Island, Marion Island and Prince Edward Island. In New Zealand in Fiordland, Westland (Clarke River), Canterbury (Huxley River, Mt. Cook Natl. Park, Arthur’s Pass Natl. Park), Southern North Island (Ruahine Ra.) and Volcanic Plateau (Mt. Ruapehu) EPs.

On soil, in flushes, on stream banks and tarn margins, also in very constantly damp places on shady aspects of mountains, under penalpine scrub and low upper montane Nothofagus solandrivar. cliffortioides forest as well as in Chionochloa pallens tussockland. Associated species are Achrophyllum dentatum, Adelanthus occlusus, Balantiopsis tumida, Categonium nitens, Cephalozia sp., Chiloscyphus muricatus, Clandarium xiphophyllum, Conostomum pusillum, Dicranoloma robustum, Plagiomnium novae-zelandiae, Pyrrhobryum mnioides, Riccardia colensoi, Schistochila monticola, Trichocolea rigida and Tylimanthus diversifolius.