Flora of New Zealand Series

Herb, creeping and rooting at nodes, often densely matted with crowded lvs, or with erect reddish stems to 15 cm tall. Stems glabrous or with lines of fine strigillose hairs decurrent from margins of petioles. Lamina of lf narrowly elliptic or elliptic, 6-20 × 2-5.5 mm. Floral tube 0.5-1.1 mm deep, glabrous. Petals white, 3.3-5 × 3.6 mm. Capsule glabrous, 0.8-2.2 cm long; fruiting pedicel (0.2)-1-4 cm long.

S.: scattered throughout in the high mountains, 1200-2150 m, but common only in Otago.

Also indigenous to S.E. Australia and Tasmania.

Alpine fellfield and herbfield, often in moist places or in shelter of rocks, also on stable stony ground with fine substrate, especially near the upper edge of old glacial cirques.

FL Dec-Jan.