Flora of New Zealand Series

Spreading and suckering shrub up to 4-(6) m high, often forming thickets; stems ± erect; secondary branches ± spreading or curving downwards; young stems green, shiny. Lvs oblong, with up to 10 pairs of leaflets; petiole (20)-30-70-(90) mm long, yellowish green, glabrous or glabrate, sometimes puberulent; middle leaflets sessile, narrow-lanceolate to lanceolate, 60-110 × 13-30 mm, acuminate, rounded at base, glabrous or with scattered hairs, pale green and with veins strongly impressed on upper surface giving an almost rugose appearance, with fine hairs chiefly along veins on lower surface; margins 2-serrate with sharply acute teeth; stipules small, linear. Infl. loose, ± drooping to pendulous, 20-35-(50) cm long; main branches densely hairy, sometimes with stalked glands; pedicels glabrous. Sepals broadly triangular-ovate with rounded apex, 0.7-1 mm long, glabrous, brown. Petals 1.5-2.5 mm diam., orbicular, blunt, ± white, sometimes pale pink-flushed. Fr. 2.5-3 mm long, brown, borne on recurved peduncles.

S.: Canterbury (Okains Bay on Banks Peninsula), C. Otago (N. of Lowburn, Kawarau Gorge, Crown Range, Arrowtown, Queenstown).

Himalaya 1920

Open hillsides and road margins, especially at sites disturbed by mining, often in scrub, up to 800 m.

FL Dec-Jan.

S. tomentosa is sometimes grown as an amenity shrub. In contrast to descriptions in many overseas Floras, N.Z. plants tend to have fewer and shorter leaflets with fewer veins and the infl. branches have a tendency to spread at only an acute angle rather than spreading ± at right angles to the main axis of the infl. The sp. has been previously recorded in N.Z. as S. lindleyana.