Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Arthur Pass, 920 m. altitude. Type: W, 4158, L. Cockayne, 6/1/98.

Lf-lamina rather broadly oval, upper surface uniformly and rather closely covered with short hairs; petioles, peduncles and bracts hairy, the hairs on uppermost bracts predominantly glandular. Calyx-lobes c. 5-7 mm. long, with ∞ mostly glandular hairs.

DIST.: S., St. Mountains throughout, also on Banks Peninsula.

FL.- FT. 12-4.

The name O. lactea Ckn. et Allan ined. was quoted by Cockayne and Sledge (J. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) 49, 1932, 128) with the note "The O. crosbyi Ckn. of Laing and Oliver's paper (Veget. of Upper Bealey River Basin, Trans. N.Z. Inst. vol. lix, p. 715, 1928)". O. lactea has remained a nomen nudum, but it is obvious that it was meant to apply to the common large hairy-lvd Ourisia of the Arthur Pass district, and the specimen now chosen as type has been annotated by Cockayne "This is a stunted form of Ourisia lactea Ckn. ined. but referred to in several of my publications. For a long time it was considered to be O. macrophylla or O. colensoi."

 Var. lactea, while varying greatly in size, remains rather uniform in most characters throughout its whole range. The glandular hairs of the infl. distinguish it immediately from all forms of O. crosbyi, with the distribution of which it overlaps; vegetatively the latter sp. differs in its generally more elongate lvs with rather more sharply toothed margins and in having hairs on the undersurface of lvs between as well as on veins.