Flora of New Zealand Series

Perennial; rosettes tufted along a slender creeping stem. Lvs long-petiolate; lamina entire, spathulate or dilated, glabrous, 5-15 mm long. Fls solitary, 6-8 mm diam., on glabrous scapes. Sepals spreading, glabrous. Petals 4, yellow to purple, linear; nectary single, 0.5 mm from petal base, pocket-like. Receptacle glabrous. Achenes 5-15, hardly flattened, glabrous; body 0.8-1 mm long; beak straight or curved, c. 1 mm long.

N.: Waikato, Taranaki, Taupo, Hawke's Bay; S.: Canterbury, Otago, S. Westland, Fiordland.

Endemic.

Margins of swamps, lakes and streams, often submerged, or in mud, 0-750 m.

Melville, R., Nature 203: 204 (1964), reported gynodioecism in R. limosella; beyond such reports of occasional male-sterile plants little is known of the breeding system of the sp.