Flora of New Zealand Series

kuumarahou

Erect shrub to 2.5 m high. Adult and juvenile lvs petiolate; lamina 20-80 × 10-40 mm, elliptic to elliptic-ovate; upper surface glabrous except for scattered simple hairs around sunken midrib; lower surface with fine grey stellate tomentum and scattered simple or large stellate hairs on veins; margins entire, not revolute; stipules 2-3 mm long, deciduous. Infl. a much-branched, dense, terminal corymb. Calyx reflexing, pale green; tube with dense, long, white, simple hairy covering until after anthesis. Petals yellow; limb broad. Anthers oblong. Ovary with stellate hairs at apex, almost wholly immersed in calyx tube at anthesis, c. 1/2 immersed at fruiting. Fr. cocci opening by opercula occupying c. 1/2 of their inner faces.

N.: N. Cape Peninsula southwards to N. Taranaki and Bay of Plenty.

Endemic.

Clay soil areas, especially gumland.

FL Sep-Oct.