Flora of New Zealand Series

O. macphersonii Ckn. et Allan in T.N.Z.I. 56, 1926, 30.

Original localities: Southland-"On floor of subalpine scrub, Longwood Range. Stewart Island-In forest Mount Anglem." Type: not located.

Stem prostrate and rooting, up to 1 cm. diam., lvs. us. in terminal compact tuft but sts more scattered with internodes 1 cm. or more long. Lamina submembr., 2-12 cm. long, ovate-oblong, length us. 1·5-2 × width, regularly shallowly crenate-dentate, base rounded, upper surface rather evenly hairy all over, hairs on undersurface both on and between veins; petiole slender, = or > lamina, uniformly and us. quite densely hairy. Peduncle hairy, erect, much > lvs, occ. 40 cm. Long, us. with a whorl of 2-4 rather broad ± sessile cauline lvs below floral bracts. Bracts in 1-4 whorls, as many as 12 in upper whorls of large plants, often only 2-4 in lower whorls or small plants; hairs scattered us. over both surfaces. Pedicels up to as many as bracts in each whorl and longer, 2-5 cm. long, clad in flexuous tapering hairs. Calyx-clefts all reaching almost to base; lobes c. 5-7 mm. long, linear-oblong, entire, subacute, hairs ∞, flexuous, tapering. Corolla 15-20 mm. diam., glab. outside.

DIST.: S., St. From Fiordland to Westland and Longwood Range; apparently not uncommon in Stewart Id. Streamsides, rocks and open places from sealevel to subalpine scrub.

FL. 12-2-(3). FT. 1-3.

The rather ample collections of recent expeditions to Fiordland show a complete range in size of plant and complexity of infl. from smaller than W 4159 to larger than W 4157, but all share the morphological features (lack of glandular hairs, linear-oblong calyx-lobes, glab. corolla) that distinguish them from other spp. of similar habit and size-range.

Cockayne's description and comments stress the slender habit with internodes 1-2 cm. long between radical lvs (by a typographical error the pedicels are described as 2-3 mm instead of 2-3 cm. long); the one known specimen (W 4159, Haast Range, Poppelwell) labelled by Cockayne, though slender, has tufted lvs.

O. macphersonii from "Fiordland Botanical District-Shady banks of River Spey at about 210 m. and in open boggy ground towards Wilmot Pass at 670 m. altitude: L.C." was based on larger plants and there is one large infl. (W 4157, Dusky Sound, W. A. Thomson 1921) labelled by Cockayne "Probably Ourisia macphersonii Ckn. which is a common plant at low levels on river banks in the central part of Fiord Bot. Dist." Neither W 4157 nor any other flowering specimen shows basal lvs. glab. below and purplish as described for O. macphersonii, though one non-flowering specimen shows these features.