Flora of New Zealand Series

butter-print

Erect annual herb, 0.3-1-(1.5) m high. Stems densely hairy with short erect simple hairs and stellate hairs of equal length above, but mostly fine stellate hairs below, becoming somewhat woody at base. Lvs densely clothed in fine stellate hairs, velvety to touch, slightly lighter green below, broadly ovate to suborbicular, acuminate, cordate to almost sagittate at base, not lobed, serrate, 3-15 cm long; petioles 2-15 cm long; stipules linear, c. 10 mm long, deciduous. Fls axillary and solitary or in irregular axillary infls; fruiting pedicels 1-15 cm long; calyx shallowly campanulate; calyx teeth much > tube, ovate-triangular, acute to acuminate, densely clothed in stellate hairs, ± unchanged at fruiting; petals yellow, 7-13 mm long. Cells c. 13 per fr., covered in fine stellate hairs and with long stellate hairs particularly along the ridged back; dorsal apical angle with a long slender awn. Seeds brown, hairy, c. 3 mm diam.

N.: Ararimu and Papakura (N. Auckland); S.: Lincoln (Canterbury).

S.E. Europe, Mediterranean to Russia and Asia 1978

Pasture, cultivated land.

The fine, equally long, stellate and simple stem hairs distinguish butter-print from the 3 other naturalised Abutilon spp. (Fig. 79).