Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Bay of Islands, "mossy places". Type" K, J. D. Hooker, 1841. More local than N. depressa. Said to occur in the Philippine Is.

Glab. with very slender branched stems, forming patches up to c. 2 dm. diam.; branchlets almost filiform. Lvs on filiform petioles 2-3 mm. long; stipules narrow-triangular, acute. Lamina 5-6-(8) × (1)-2-(3) mm., narrow-ovate, acute, gradually narrowed to apex and to rounded or occ. subtruncate base; margins thickened. Fls minute, axillary and terminal, sessile or subsessile. Calyx ± 2 mm. long, truncate or minutely 4-toothed. Corolla c. 1·5-2 mm. long, subcampanulate; lobes 4, ± = tube. Anthers and styles shortly exserted. Drupe globose, 3-4 mm. diam., red.

DIST.: N., S. Lowland to montane damp forest, shrubland and boggy places from lat. 35 º southwards to c. lat. 44º, and probably further south.

FL. 11-2. FT. 12-5.

Cockayne and Allan (Ann. Bot., Lond. 48, 1934, 44) record with doubt. N. cunninghamii × depressa -" They occur together and apparently hybridize in the northern part of South Island."

Colenso (T.N.Z.I. 28, 1896, 595) described his N. papillosa from specimens collected in "Low wet spots on the sides of the mountain Tongariro . . . Mr. H. Hill; 1893." This is given as "A minute low creeping herb, 3 in.-4 in. long, rooting at nodes, much branched; branches very short; subsucculent, glabrous, finely papillose . . . Leaves very small, scarcely 11/2 lines long, suborbicular-deltoid . . . . corolla 1 line in diameter . . . Fruit globular, glabrous, shining, sessile, 1/10 in. diameter, red." Colenso described his sp. from plants grown in his garden. Both Kirk (Stud. Fl. 1899, 247) and Cheeseman (Man. N.Z. fl. 1925, 878) place N. papillosa as a synonym of N. cunninghamii. I have not found specimens but Colenso's description does not well accord with this view.