Flora of New Zealand Series

type locality: Mt Ida, 4000 ft. near Naseby, on finely broken shingle. Type: W, 2393, D.P.

Rosette-lvs up to 4 × 1 cm., linear-spathulate, lamina tapering gradually into broad petiole of about the same length, tip obtuse, apiculate; hairs mostly rather long, stiff, closely appressed, on upper surface almost touching and some retrorse, on undersurface sparser and most or all retrorse. Lateral branches few, ascending to erect, 7 cm. or more long, lfy to cyme, internodes < lvs. Stem-lvs c. 15 × 2 mm., linear-oblong, tip subacute; hairs on upper surface mostly long, stiff, appressed, on undersurface sparser and about half of them retrorse. Cymes simple, ebracteate, compact and c. 2 cm. long in fr.; internodes and pedicels very short. Calyx 6-9 mm. long, lobes < 1/2 length, narrow-oblong and subacute, hairs on lobes long and slightly flexuous, long ones towards base slightly hooked with underlayer of shorter appressed retrorse hairs. "Corolla one-half longer than the calyx, funnel-shaped, purple, the lobes 5, spreading, and obtusely rounded. Stamens 5, very slightly exserted; filaments nearly as long as the pendulous anthers, springing from the base of the corolla lobes; scales obscure. Style twice as long as calyx, slender." Ripe nutlets not seen.

DIST.: S. Known only from two sheets from the

The W specimens have infls but no corollas, and Petrie's description of these is quoted above. Petrie's label bears the note: "I visited this station in 1911, but failed to find any of the plant." He compared his sp. (loc. cit. 1896) with M. monroi ("the Dun Mountain Exarrhena") and with M. traversii Hook. f., and later (T.N.Z.I. 50, 1918, 208) with his M. saxatilis and states that it is "quite unlike M. lyallii under which Cheeseman has suggested placing it". Retrorse hairs have not been seen on the upper lf-surface of any other sp.