Flora of New Zealand Series

Tufted herb with wiry stems, branched. Stems black to pale brown, 8-25 cm long, sometimes sprawling, with lines of ± appressed short hairs. Lamina of lf usually broadly elliptic to rotund, rarely elliptic, 2-8 × 1-3 mm. Floral tube 0.4-0.6 mm deep, strigillose outside. Petals white, 2-2.9 × 0.8-1.9 mm. Capsules with conspicuous bands of strigillose hairs along the lines of dehiscence, thus appearing striped light and dark, rarely strigillose all over, 0.9-2.2 cm long; fruiting pedicel 0.2-1.6 cm long.

N.: mountains of East Cape, vicinity of Lake Rotorua, and Taumarunui southwards, abundant along coast from Wellington Heads to about 32 km E. of Cape Palliser; S.: throughout S. to c. 45° 30', but much more frequent E. of the Main Divide and absent from Fiordland.

Endemic.

Frequent in stony riverbeds, flats and outwash plains, sea level to 750-(1200) m.

FL Dec-Feb.

Allan (1961) accepted var. prostratum Petrie, but this is treated as a synonym by Raven and Raven.