Flora of New Zealand Series

Perennial herb; stems slender, filiform, straggling, to 20 cm long, glabrous, or retrorsely ciliate on angles. Lvs and stipules in distant whorls of 4, subsessile or with petioles to 1-(2) mm long; lamina (1)-1.5-4-(8) × (0.7)-1-3.5 mm, usually elliptic, broad-ovate to broad-elliptic or obovate, rarely narrower; margins and midrib glabrous or ciliolate; apex usually mucronate. Fls 1-3 in terminal or axillary cymes; peduncles and pedicels filiform; peduncles 0-2-(7) mm long; pedicels (0.7)-1-4-(6) mm long, deflexed at fruiting; bracts very small or 0. Corolla 1.3-2 mm diam., white; lobes ± ovate-oblong, acute or mucronate. Mericarps 1-1.5 mm diam., reniform to subglobose, ± rugulose, glabrous or with appressed hairs.

N.; S.; St.; Ch., A.

Also indigenous to E. Australia.

Lowland to montane regions, especially rather damp, shady places such as forest margins and clearings, scrub, stream and lakesides, near swamps, moister grasslands, often around rock outcrops.

FL Oct-Mar.

Although Allan (1961) stated that G. propinquum is more polymorphic than G. trilobum (described there as G. tenuicaule Cunn.), G. trilobum is in fact the more variable sp.

G. propinquum is often confused with G. trilobum and both are sometimes mistaken for the introduced G. palustre. However, G. palustre has 5-30 fls in the infl. as opposed to 1-4 in the other 2 spp., and often dries darker than other spp. of the genus in N.Z. G. propinquum has consistently elliptic, broadly elliptic or elliptic-obovate lvs, peduncles usually 0-2 mm long and pedicels usually 1-4 mm long, whereas G. trilobum has narrowly elliptic, oblanceolate to spathulate lvs, peduncles usually 3-20 mm long and pedicels usually 1-11 mm long. In addition the slender stems are usually < 20 cm long in G. propinquum and much > 20 cm long in G. trilobum. A few specimens are intermediate with lf shape like G. propinquum and peduncle and pedicel lengths more like G. trilobum (e.g., CHR 254542, Mt. Cook National Park, Mt. Hodgkinson, Wilson and Buchanan, Apr. 1969).

The third indigenous sp., G. perpusillum, is usually much more compact but can occasionally have straggling stems to c. 12 cm long. However, the narrowly lanceolate, linear-lanceolate, oblanceolate or narrowly elliptic lvs and stipules, and the unisexual, solitary, sessile or shortly pedicellate tubular fls, easily distinguish it.