Gentiana spenceri Kirk
Type locality: Mount Rochfort. Type: W, 4711, F. H. Spencer, Jan. 1880.
Annual, with a single stem to several very slender erect stems ± 7·5-15-(25) cm. tall. Basal lvs ∞, rosulate, subcoriac., dark green (reddened when exposed); lamina broadly ovate- to obovate- spathulate, 20-40-(50) mm. long, narrowed into a broad flat petiole = or > lamina, 3-(5)-nerved. Cauline lvs few, narrowly oblong-spathulate; petioles shorter. Fls in 2-4-fld lateral or terminal involucrate umbels, or often the umbels densely 5-12-fld, each stem us. with a terminal umbel and 2 lateral ones. Umbels surrounded by a whorl of 5-7 oblong-spathulate lvs > fls. Calyx cut 3/4 way or almost to base into unequal lobes, the broadest spathulate, obtuse and ± foliaceous, the narrowest linear, acute and membr. Corolla white, us. with purple to dark red or violet veins, c. 12 mm. long, hardly > calyx, cut c. ⅔ way into narrow-oblong, obtuse lobes.
DIST.: S. Montane to subalpine damp grassland, herbfield, shrubland, forest (especially marginally) from lat. 41° to 42° 30' in N. W. Nelson and Westland. Also recorded by Cheeseman (Man. N.Z.
Fl. 1925, 734) from "Mackinnon's Pass, F. G. Gibbs!"
The type folder includes the plant and the fl. and a capsule depicted in Kirk's t. 27A and B. Cheeseman's Plate 141 (III. N.Z. Fl. 1914) shows the shape of the corolla-lobes correctly in the dissection (fig. 2) but less accurately in the whole fls; the calyx-lobes are made to look much more uniform than is usual in the sp. or in the specimen (A 7308) from which the drawing was made.
A well-marked sp. but apparently plastic, responding readily to different habitat conditions. Just within the upper forest margin on some North Id mountains occurs a plant closely related to G. spenceri but differing in smaller size, paler colour and apiculate corolla-lobes (e.g. A 47765, Ruapehu, J . E. Attwood; BD 87812, Mt. Hauhungatahi, L. B. Moore).
