Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Mount Pisa. Type: W, D. Petrie, 1885. The type consists of 4 barren pieces. The citation is from Cheeseman, I have not seen good flowering material.

Stems wiry, densely to sparsely clad in long silky hairs, rooting at nodes; branches ∞, short, ascending, concealed by densely imbricate ± glab. lvs with sheaths closely appressed. Lamina c. 3-5 mm. long, cut straight down to truncate or rounded sheath into 5-7 linear-subulate erect teeth. Sheath chartaceous, 2-2.5 × 2-2·25 mm. Scape 3-5 mm. long, terminal, clad in ascending slender hairs, nude. Capitula terminal, 3-4 mm. long; receptacle hemispherical. Phyll. in 1-2 series, ovate-oblong, obtuse; margins purple, scarious, ± ciliolate; ± 2 mm. long, midvein purplish. ♀ "few, in 1 series; corolla ovoid, compressed, narrowed at the mouth. Disc-florets numerous, funnel-shaped". Achenes compressed-obovoid, glab., weakly ribbed.

DIST.: S. Higher montane to subalpine open grassland, rocky places, fellfield; Old Man Range, Garvie Range to Rough Peaks and Cecil Peaks above Lake Wakatipu.

Kirk (Stud. Fl. 1899, 326) describes his var. pinnatisecta as having "Leaves silky, tomentose, pinnatisect", from plants collected on the Remarkables, near Lake Wakatipu, by Petrie. Specimens seen by me can hardly be called pinnatisect or even pinnatifid.