Carmichaelia grandiflora
C. australis var. grandiflora Benth. in Hook. f. Fl. N.Z. 1, 1852, 50.
Type locality: Milford Sound. Type: K, Lyall.
Much-branched, spreading, spring- and summer-lfy shrub up to 2 m. tall. Branchlets drooping, c. 1·5-2-(3) mm. wide, glab., compressed, finely grooved. Lvs 3-5-foliolate, ∞; lflts ± clad in appressed hairs, obcordate-cuneate; lateral sessile, terminal shortly stalked with lamina c. 5-6 × 3-5 mm., midvein prominent. Infl. of subumbellate 5-10-fld racemes on peduncles up to 10 mm. long. Fls fragrant, (6)-7-8 × (4)-5 mm., on strict pilose pedicels. Calyx ± pubescent, c. 3 × 2 mm., campanulate; teeth narrow-triangular, acute, ciliate; standard slightly > wings, obcordate, purple-veined and -blotched; keel c. 2-3 mm. broad, white, auricles rounded; wings = keel, white, auricles rounded. Ovary glab. Pods stramineous to pale brown, elliptic-oblong, ± 10 × 3 mm., subturgid; beak c. 2 mm. long, straight, subulate. Seeds 2-4, brown, 3 × 2 mm., somewhat flattened.
DIST.: S. Lowland to upper montane streamsides, alluvial ground and shady places throughout, but mainly west of divide.
Bentham (in Hook. f. Fl. N.Z. 1, 1852, 50) describes his C. australis var. grandiflora as: "calycis dentibus elongatis, floris magnis, bracteolis calyce impositis, ramulis foliatis, legumine brevi-rostrato." In the type cover at K is a sheet with Lyall's specimens and others from Waitaki Valley. The two Lyall pieces, in fl. and fr., are in good order-terminal lflts up to 8 × 3 mm., with a few appressed hairs; branchlets compressed, finely grooved, pilose, ± 1·5 mm. wide. Fls 6-8 mm. long, peduncles glab.; calyx 3 × 2 mm., teeth ± 1 mm., prominent, narrow-triangular. This is the common form of Fiordland and closely similar to that of the Mount Cook area (see Cheeseman Ill. N.Z. Fl. 1, 1914, t. 33), except for the broader calyx-teeth.
Kirk's var. alba (Stud. Fl. 1899, 111) is described as: "Branchlets more robust, compressed, deeply grooved, fastigiate or nearly so. Flowers as in the typical form, but white. Ripe pods not seen. Smells disgustingly of mice. Near the Waimakariri glaciers, Enys and Kirk. Jan. Possibly a distinct species."
Cockayne (T.N.Z.I. 50, 1918, 165), after an account of a garden plant taken from the original locality of Kirk's var. alba, concludes: "The var. alba may therefore be defined as follows: a wide-spreading shrub with the branchlets situated on the flanks of the stems, the racemes numerous, 4-6-flowered, the flowers white with a pale-purple blotch down the centre of the standard and sweet-scented, the standard as broad as long and rather longer than the keel, which equals the wings."
While the sp. as at present understood includes several forms, the type is clearly recognizable. Simpson (loc. cit. 241) makes the rather heightened statement: "The species is a vast composite of closely related and more or less localised forms." He emphasizes certain variant characters, e.g. "the calyx teeth may be short and blunt or triangular and acute", and adds that "in all the forms the colour fades and the flowers are white before they wither."
