Flora of New Zealand Series

[Fig. 111: 1–4, 6, 7; Fig. 112: 1, 2, 4–6, 10]

Plants decurved to cernuous distally. Terminal branching ± regular, 1–2(3)-pinnate, the branches crowded toward the distal sector of leading shoots and defining a deltoid to subflabellate outline; branch leaves (particularly the narrower, more elongate ones of secondary and tertiary branches as well as distal sectors of primary branches) often with denticulate-dentate apices. Stems rather stiff, in basal portion of well-developed shoots becoming ± woody, dark and brown and ultimately leafless with age; medulla 19–22 cells high.

Distribution and Ecology : New Zealand: South Island (60–600 m); Australia: Tasmania. Known in New Zealand from Canterbury (Arthur’s Pass) and Western Nelson (Punakaiki, Stockton Plateau) EPs.

The typical variety is known from only a few South Island sites, e.g., in a pakihi 20 km N of Punakaiki at 60 m. At Arthur’s Pass (Coral track, 600 m) it occurs on wet peaty soil in a forest of Nothofagus solandri var. cliffortioides, Phyllocladus alpinus, Coprosma pseudocuneata and C. foetidissima, with Sphagnum falcatulum and Riccardia crassa. At Stockton Plateau it occurs on Mt. Augustus at 960 m under Metrosideros umbellata and N. menziesii scrub on a granite rock outcrop, with Adelanthus occlusus and Kurzia hippuroides, and at Cypress Stream (also Stockton Plateau, 700 m) under Chionochloa juncea and Empodisma minus tussockland, on soil with Anastrophyllum schismoides, Dicranoloma robustum, Gackstroemia alpina and Riccardia crassa.