Flora of New Zealand Series

Glabrous perennial, 5-10 cm tall; rosettes tufted, on stout creeping or ascending rhizomes. Lvs suborbicular, deeply (rarely shallowly) 3-lobed to 2-ternatisect, coriaceous, glaucous, 5-10 cm long; lobes toothed, crenate or dissected into linear obtuse segments, irregularly pitted with shallow brown depressions distinct from the network of grooves over the veins. Scapes 1-flowered, erect at flowering, recurved at fruiting. Fls 3-5 cm diam. Sepals spreading, glabrous. Petals 5-6, yellow, obovate-cuneate; nectaries 1-(3), 1-4 mm from petal base, naked. Receptacle glabrous. Achenes 12-20, subglobose, turgid, glabrous; body 2.5-3 mm long; beak straight or curved, 2.5-3.5 mm long.

S.: S. Marlborough, S. Nelson, Canterbury, N. Otago, Southland (Eyre Mountains).

Endemic.

Ridges, hollows and saddles in bare eroded clay soils or stony screes overlying moist debris, 600-1500 m.

Forms from Castle Hill Basin, Canterbury, with shallowly 3-lobed lvs and finely sharply serrate or crenate margins have been treated as R. paucifolius by Allan (1961) and as R. crithmifolius subsp. paucifolius by Fisher (1965, op. cit.) where a fuller description and illustrations may be found. Separation from R. crithmifolius at either rank seems unjustified. R. chordorhizos is included here as a synonym of R. crithmifolius.