Flora of New Zealand Series

Anguillaria novae-zelandiae Hook. f. in Kirk in T.N.Z.I.  10,  1878,  App. xl.

Original specimens: "In swamps near Christchurch; Rangitata, Mr Armstrong". Lectotype: K, Herb. Hookerianum, 298 Haast, 1867, "Canterbury Plains", Armstrong.

An inconspicuous, summer-green, glab. herb 3–8–(10) cm. tall. Corm to 7–(9) × 5–(8) mm., enclosed in persistent papery sheaths, the innermost reddish brown. Stem annual, slender, < lvs. Lvs us. 2 above the membr. prophyll; sheath closed below, then broader and ± pouch-like, narrowing gradually above; lamina 2–9–(12) cm. × 1–2–(8) mm., linear, deeply channelled or folded; tip terete; below fl. a much smaller, ± bract-like lf (occ. 2), us. green but occ. petaloid. Fl. solitary, terminal. Tepals 3–6, c. 4–5 × 1.5–2 mm., oblong-lanceolate, obtuse, all ± similar, white or slightly pink, marcescent; lateral veins forked, a short one on each side ending in a submarginal gland which exudes clear nectar. Stamens as many as tepals, shortly adnate at base; filaments slightly flattened below, narrow and terete above, inserted into a fovea between anther lobes; anthers shortly oblong, dehiscing by lateral slits. Ovary c. 2.5 mm. diam., subglobose, the styles widely divergent and separating with the valves of the ripe capsule; ovules c. 8 on two axile placentae in each locule. Capsule c. 4–6–10 × 2–3–6 mm., oval, sulcate, pericarp at first green and fleshy, becoming horny and faintly transversely rugose, carried up with its small lf on an elongating stem, dehiscing us. both loculicidally and septicidally into 2–6 wide-spreading lobes. Seeds c. 1 mm. diam., globose, minutely reticulate, on long capillary funicle. 2n = 20.

DIST.: S. Canterbury and N. Otago. Sea level to 1,000 m., but perhaps now extinct in lowlands.

Swamp, lake edges, and tussock grassland.

FL. 11–12. FT. 1–2.

J. F. Armstrong first recorded the sp. ( T.N.Z.I. 2, 1870, 126) in a list of plants in the neighbourhood of Christchurch, but he did not describe it. J. D. Hooker (in Kirk) and Baker gave independent descriptions under Armstrong's specific name in 1878 and 1879 respectively, both apparently from Armstrong's material.

The corm is filled with starch when the capsule ripens and the top withers in February or March. The bud for the new shoots is borne laterally, a little below the level of that of the previous year, and from it a cluster of roots grows out through the papery tunic giving a ± lop-sided shape to the corm. Each corm is a little deeper in the fibrous soil than the last, and flowering plants have corms c. 2.5 cm. below the soil surface, and a long collar-region protected by old lf-sheaths.

No perfectly formed, fully trimerous fl. has been seen. Tepals are us. < 6 and often malformed and partly green; they are not deciduous but, with the stamens, remain dried up at the base of the ripe capsule. Not infrequently stamens have one or both anther lobes aborted, filaments petaloid, or some other abnormality. In a sample of some 150 plants only about a dozen had regular 3-locular capsules, but ample, well-filled seed is us. set. Small few-lvd plants and solitary, almost sessile, and poorly-formed fls make it difficult to place the sp. with confidence as to genus. Buxbaum (Bot. Arch. 38, 1937, 213–293) discusses the relationship between Iphigenia, Anguillaria and Wurmbea (as Wurmbaea) and illustrates the corm pattern common to all three genera.