Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: West Wanganui Inlet. Type: W, W. R. B. Oliver, 28/12/1949.

Erect, up to c. 3m. tall; branches stout, bark greyish; branchlets ∞, slender; bark grey to dark brown. Lvs crowded towards tips of branchlets. Sheath 5-6 × 2 mm., ciliolate, rather abruptly narrowed to lamina 40-45 × 2.5-3 mm., minutely pubescent on both surfaces, canaliculate, ascending, gradually narrowed to pungent apex; margins very minutely serrulate. Fls solitary or in 2-3-fld racemes, bracts lflike. Sepals narrow-ovate, acicular; corolla-tube ± 4 mm. long, lobes white, ovate. Anthers slightly exserted; capsule truncate.

DIST.: S.

Oliver (loc. cit. 1952, 8) describes the early stages thus: "(1) Juvenile plants 1/2 to 1 m. tall, erect, unbranched, stems smooth, with reddish-brown bark and circular leaf scars averaging 7 mm. apart. Leaves long, wide and grass-like, glabrous, bright green, 125 by 10 mm. including sheath. (2) Submature plants to 1 m. or more tall, bark changing to reddish-brown with the leaf scars obliterated. Leaves acuminate, with glaucous tinge due to a fine powdery looking pubescence, 80 by 6 mm., including sheath, and smaller." The type material shows these characters very well.