Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Mt. Kyeburn. Type: K, D. Petrie. There are specimens from Mt. Kyeburn in Herb. Petrie (W 4855).

Delicate succulent annual herb sts flowering when < 1 cm. high, occ. much elongated with branched stems up to 10 cm. long; branches ± flattened with membr. wings, us. laxly ascending, occ. rooting at nodes but not mat-forming, glab. or with sparse flattened jointed hairs. Lvs sessile, 4-6-(8) × (2)-4-6 mm., upper 1/2 to ⅓ digitately divided into (3)-5-7 acute to acuminate, linear, subequal, spreading segs 1·5-3 mm. long, cuneate and subsheathing at base, membr. when dry, glab. or setose on margins and tips, occ. glandular hairs present. Fls few towards the tips of the branches on flattened membr. pedicels up to 20 mm. long. Calyx 4-5-(7) mm. long, divided ?-1/2 way; lobes lanceolate, acute, glab. or setose on margins and tips. Corolla white, 8-15 mm. long; tube slender, up to 8 mm., much > calyx; lobes of lower lip up to 2 mm. wide, entire. Anthers yellow to golden brown, margins glab. or nearly so, awns slender, almost equal. Capsule > calyx, oval, densely setose at apex; ovules 2 per locule, mature seeds not seen.

DIST.: S., St. Boggy places on mountains of Otago, Southland and Stewart Id; Mt. Somers, Canterbury, bogs at 5,000 ft., A. Wall.

FL. 1-2.

Wettstein separated his sp. from E. repens partly because he considered the 2 ovules in each locule to be apposite, not superposed as described by Hooker (Ic. Pl. 1879, 65) for E. repens. The placentation has not been further investigated. The two spp. are morphologically very similar but occupy quite different habitats.

Dehisced capsules have not been seen in this sp. or in E. repens, but available material is meagre. In both spp. the oblong cotyledons are us. larger than the lvs and often persist through the whole life-cycle, especially in very small plants.