Flora of New Zealand Series

Stylidium (?) subulatum Hook. f. Handbk N.Z. Fl. 1864, 168.

Type locality: "Nelson Mountains". Type: K, Mr Locke Travers, 1861.

Glab. herb with short stock, deeply descending taproot, emitting slender stolons or rhizomes with internodes up to ± 6 cm. long. Lvs densely tufted, spreading, ± recurved, sessile, entire, 10-40 × 1-2-(3) mm., linear, shallowly concavo-convex, mucronate, sts almost pungent. Peduncles 1-fld, rather stout, glab. to pubescent, sts still not > 5 mm. long when capsule mature, sts elongating to ± 2 cm long. Bracts, if present, lflike. Fls 4-5 mm. diam.; receptacle adnate to ovary, ± glandular-pubescent. Calyx-lobes 1-2 mm. long, persistent, ascending, oblong, obtuse, ± mucronate. Corolla-lobes patent, oblong, obtuse, white. Capsule 5-8 × 4-5 mm., broad-ovoid to subglobose to obovoid.

DIST.: N., S., St. Lowland to lower subalpine damp grassland, boggy ground and herbfield, from c. lat. 38° southwards, rather local.

FL. 11-3. FT. 1-6.

Colenso (T.N.Z.I. 20, 1888, 197) described his O. affine from plants collected "In swampy ground at west base of Mount Tongariro . . . 1887: Mr. H. Hill." He separates it from O. subulatum by: "Scape slender, erect, 1/2 inch high, with a broad foliaceous bract about the middle, glandular-hairy (as also the calyx and ovary), hairs tipped with globular black heads . . .Ovary large, (for plant), 11/2 lines long, oblong, sub-cylindrical, tapering and jointed on to scape."

Long-peduncled forms occur also in northern South Id. Plants grow readily in cultivation, and more detailed study would be worthwhile.