Euphrasia townsonii Petrie
Type locality: Mt. Rochfort. Type: W, 4849, "Mts near Westport", W. Townson.
Slender tufted perennial herb sts with stout woody stock; stems slender, much-branched and rooting at nodes, branches erect, 5-15 cm. tall, slender to filiform, us. densely pubescent with lax flattened white hairs. Lvs sessile, us. rather distant, 4-10-(15) × 2-4-(7) mm., narrow- to ovate-rhomboid with 1-2 pairs of narrow acute teeth and large triangular acute terminal lobe, cuneate at base, glab. or with sparse glandular or non-glandular hairs, margins thickened and revolute. Fls few towards the tips of the branches on slender straight pedicels 5-20 mm. long, us. distinctly > lvs; calyx and pedicels densely pilose with flattened white hairs and long glandular hairs. Calyx 5-8 mm. long, ± evenly divided ?-1/2 way; lobes lanceolate to triangular, acute, margins and midribs thickened and reddish. Corolla white, (10)-15-20 mm. long and diam.; tube much > calyx; lobes of lower lip 4-9 mm. wide, us. deeply emarginate, of upper lip 2-5 mm. wide, entire to emarginate. Anthers golden yellow, marginal hairs ∞, awns us. very unequal, stout. Capsule ± = calyx or much shorter, 3-7 × 2.5-4 mm., broad-oblong to obovate or almost suborbicular, glab. or nearly so; seeds 8-10 per locule, 1-1·5 mm. long.
DIST.: S. Mountains of N.W. Nelson to Paparoa Range and St. Arnaud Mts, 500-1500 m. altitude, us. in damp and peaty ground.
FL. 12-2-(4). FT. 1-2-(4).
Variable in the size and shape of the lvs and size of the fls. Small forms with narrow-rhomboid lvs up to 5 × 3 mm. with only 1 pair of small lateral teeth resemble E. revoluta closely, especially unusually short-pedicelled plants such as occur on Mt. Robert, but the most robust forms with upper lvs broadly ovate-rhomboid, up to 15 × 7 mm., and with 2 pairs of large lateral teeth are very different. On Mt. Arthur and Mt. Peel occur dwarf tufted forms only c. 2 cm. high but with fls and capsules still conspicuous above the imbricate lvs on pedicels 10-15 mm. long.
