Flora of New Zealand Series

Similar in habit to S. aviculare but differing in purplish stems and darker If-veining. Corolla rotate, up to 5 cm. diam., blue-purple; lobes c. 1/2 length tube, margins flat, apices emarginate. Seeds 2·2-2.5 mm. long. Baylis (loc. cit. 639) gives: n = 46, average pollen-grain diam. 36-42 µ, stone-cell masses in ripe fr. conspicuous, mostly as large as or larger than the seeds.

DIST.: N., S. From near Auckland to near Dunedin, in similar habitats to those of S. aviculare. Lectotype (Baylis loc. cit. 642): t. 349 in Bot. Mag. 1795. Specimen ex N.Z. coll. Banks and Solander.

Baylis (loc. cit. 641) observes: "The specimens listed below indicate that both in New Zealand and Australia the areas of S. aviculare and S. laciniatum overlap, that of S. aviculare extending to the northward (N. Auckland, Kermadec Is., Lord Howe I., Queensland), that of S. laciniatum to the southward (Canterbury, Otago, Tasmania) of a common area which in New Zealand lies between Auckland and the Marlborough Sounds and in Australia covers Victoria and the southern part of both New South Wales and South Australia."