Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Orepuke, Southland. Type: W, 224/237, Kirk Herb. 767, T. Kirk.

Erect, virgately much-branched shrub up to c. 2 m. tall. Branches ∞; branchlets slender, ± terete, striate, c. 1 mm. diam., ± pilose when young. Young plants lfy, adults with few or no lvs; lflts minute, ± hairy. Infl. of 1-3 racemes per notch, on short us. glab. peduncles. Fls 2-5, lax, c. 4 × 4 mm. on us. glab. pedicels. Calyx glab. or nearly so, campanulate, c. 2 × 2 mm.; teeth short, acute to subacute. Standard > keel, broad, white, purple-veined; keel whitish, purple-veined, long-clawed, auricles rounded; wings white, auricles rounded. Ovary glab. Pods 6-8 × 3 mm., obliquely oblong, ± turgid, ± narrowed to apex and base, light to dark brown; beak ± 1 mm., straight, subulate. Seeds (1)-2-4, pale green, heavily black-mottled.

DIST.: S. Streamsides and open grassland, coastal to inland Otago and Southland.

Simpson (loc. cit. 273) remarks: "Plants in shade are slender, tall and few flowered, and the pods are longer. Epharmones of shade, leafy and few flowered, with their pods compressed and narrow to the ends have been recorded as C. flagelliformis. Those of open stations as C. subulata."