Flora of New Zealand Series

Biennial to perennial. Roots tap and fibrous; taproot swollen above. Stem erect, simple or branching above, finely grooved or ribbed, glabrous, (5)-15-60-(100) cm tall. Lvs thick, glaucous, dull, glabrous, lanceolate to narrowly oblong to linear-oblanceolate, (3)-8-20-(55) × (1)-3-6-(15) cm; margins dentate. Rosette and lower stem lvs tapering to base, pinnatifid to < 1/2 way to midrib; lobes broadly triangular, spreading or slightly deflexed. Upper lvs not lobed, narrowly triangular to linear or narrowly oblanceolate, with ± rounded amplexicaul auricles at base. Infl. cymose to umbellate; capitula few to many. Involucre 10-15 mm long, turbinate to cylindric; bracts imbricate, recurved at fruiting, glabrous or sometimes the outer with a row of median broad-based trichomes, occasionally densely white-tomentose at base. Receptacle glabrous. Florets 11/2× length of involucre; corolla tube slightly > ligule; ligules spreading, yellow. Achenes elliptic, brown, strongly flattened, (3)-3.5-4 × 1.3-1.8 mm, 3-ribbed on each face, winged; spaces between ribs smooth; wings and ribs smooth. Pappus fine, white, c. = involucre.

N.: Northland, Waikato, East Cape, Taranaki, Wellington; S.: Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury (Banks Peninsula), Otago, Southland, Fiordland; St.; Ch.

Endemic.

Wet coastal cliffs and talus, rarely on sand or salt meadow.

S. kirkii was treated by Allan (1961) as S. littoralis. Hamlin (loc. cit.) provided S. kirkii as a new name for S. littoralis (Kirk) Cockayne, nom. illegit. N.Z. specimens cited as S. hydrophilus Boulos  by Boulos, L., in Eichler, Hj., Fl. S. Australia ed. 2, Suppl. (1965), do not have the distinctly larger pollen grains said to characterise that sp. These specimens are referable to S. kirkii. Koster, J., Blumea 23 : 164-166 (1976), found that New Guinea material determined as S. hydrophilus by Boulos had small pollen grains; she placed those specimens in S. asper as S. asper f. hydrophilus (Boulos) J. Koster.

S. megalocarpus of S. Australia was reported from N.Z. by Boulos, L., Bot. Not. 127 : 427 (1976, as Embergeria megalocarpa), but the one specimen on which that record was based is S. kirkii).