Flora of New Zealand Series

Nothopanax kermadecensis W. R. B. Oliver in T.N.Z.I. 56, 1926, 4.

Type: W, Sunday Id, W. R. B. Oliver.

Canopy tree up to ± 10 m. tall; trunk ± 1 m. diam. Lvs on slender petioles with sheathing bases; lflts us. 7, elliptic to elliptic-obovate, acute, obliquely cuneately narrowed to short petiolule; margins minutely serrate, except in lower third. Umbels compound; primary rays 3-5 cm. long; secondary 1-2 cm. long; umbellules compact.

DIST.: K. Sunday Id "in the damp forest on the tops of the hills".

HETEROBLASTY AND HYBRIDISM

The complications caused by these phenomena have been but little unravelled. N. simplex shows an extraordinary range of developmental forms, summarily treated in the description. Plants in fl. or fr. have been observed at several of these stages. The var. sinclairii appears to have a simpler series, but it is difficult to distinguish adults from plants of simplex var. simplex flowering in the trifoliolate stage. Hence records of sinclairii are sts doubtful. Both N. simplex and N. anomalum may bear reversion shoots of juvenile form. But there is over-whelming field evidence that where anomalum and simplex meet, a very diverse hybrid progeny may occur, including probably back-crosses. (The whole group has been named × Nothopanax anomasimplex Allan in Genetica 9, 1927, 145.) Kirk's Panax simplex var. parvum, Stud. Fl. 1899, 217, was based on specimens from Stewart Id, representing the hybrids about midway between the parents.

Nothopanax macintyrei of Cheeseman Man. N.Z. Fl. 1925, 636 was described from specimens from a tree cultivated in a Dunedin garden, originally collected in "the south of Westland". Cheeseman compares it with N. sinclairii. It matches closely hybrid forms between N. arboreum and N. simplex collected in north-west Nelson. Similar specimens doubtfully assigned to the origin N. colensoi × simplex have also been collected. N. arboreum is linked with both N. colensoi and N. laetum by intermediate forms probably of hybrid origin.