Flora of New Zealand Series

Calea leptophylla Forst. f. Prodr. 1786, 55.

Type locality: Queen Charlotte Sound? Type: K, G. Forster. There are 3 good specimens.

Shrub up to 2 m. tall; branchlets slender, greyish-tomentose. Lvs 2-4 × 1-2.5 mm., narrow-linear to linear-spathulate, margins slightly revolute; lamina erect to spreading from appressed short petiole, coriac., becoming glab. above, beneath clad in white tomentum. Capitula ∞ in small dense corymbs, pedicels short; phyll. in 3-4 series, outer glab. to pubescent-ciliate, inner with short white radiating tips; forming a narrow-turbinate involucre 3-4 mm. long. Scales of receptacle ∞, white-tipped; florets 6-10. Achenes c. 1 mm. long, glab. or nearly so; pappus-hairs up to 4 mm. long, slender, slightly thickened at tips.

DIST.: N., S. Coastal to lower montane shrubland and grassland from lat. 37° 30' to 42°. Tauhinu, Cottonwood.