Flora of New Zealand Series

Main stems creeping and rooting, up to 3 dm. or more long, branches procumbent to ascending, up to 15 cm. long, glab. or nearly so. Lvs up to 5 cm. or more long, narrow in outline, c. 1 cm. wide, 9-15-foliolate, glab., glaucescent on both surfaces; stipules scarious, c. 4 mm. long, entire; deeply obtusely dentate, obovate-cuneate, terminal lflt with petiolule up to 5 mm. long. Scape up to 25 cm. long, with one to several pairs of bracts, glab. or nearly so, purple. Bracts occ. with axillary cupules. Heads up to 2 cm. diam., purplish, bractlets linear, ciliate. Cupules c. 5 mm. long, glab., golden brown, saccate, spines 4, barbed, purplish, us. with several minute spinelets. Sepals 4, greenish, suffused with purple, especially marginally, sparingly hairy to glab. Stamens 2-4, anthers purple. Stigma plumose. Achenes up to 4 mm. long, fusiform.

DIST.: S. Montane and subalpine riverbed and open grassland from lat. 42° to 45° 30' east of divide. The sp. was based on specimens from "Southern Alps", Haast, no. 300; and Thomas River, Canterbury, Cockayne, no. 132.

Var. nana Bitter loc. cit. 1911, 173. Smaller in all its parts. Probably a dwarfed subalpine form. Based on specimens from Hector Mountains at c. 1500 m., Petrie.