Flora of New Zealand Series

broomrape

Perennial; stem 10-40-(50) cm high, arising from an orange-brown swollen base, slender or stout, with crisped, glandular hairs. Scale lvs 1-2 cm long, with glandular hairs as on stem, or often lowest scales glabrous; lower scales ovate or oblong-ovate, obtuse to subacute, dense; upper scales lanceolate, acute to acuminate, scattered. Bracts similar to upper stem scales. Calyx 8-15 mm long, deeply divided into 2 lateral segments, each unequally and deeply 2-fid with aristate lobes, with glandular hairs. Corolla 10-17 mm long, with glandular hairs outside, bluish mauve, especially veins, whitish towards base or occasionally all yellow; back of tube fairly evenly curved; upper lip erose, emarginate; lower lip ± equally 3-lobed, erose. Stamens inserted c. 2 mm above base of corolla; filaments ± hairy. Style glabrous; stigma lobes pink to purplish, occasionally yellow. Capsule 6-9 mm long, ellipsoid.

N.; S.; St.; K.

Europe, N. Africa, Macaronesia 1870

Common weed of pastures and crops, roadsides and embankments, waste places, open cliff faces.

FL Aug-Jan.

Broomrape is parasitic on Trifolium spp. in particular, but has been reported on a wide range of hosts including umbelliferous crops, indigenous shrubby Brachyglottis, Pittosporum and Coprosma spp., and composite weeds such as Hypochoeris radicata. Failure to understand the extent of this wide host range is probably the main reason why other European spp. of broomrape have been occasionally recorded in N.Z., especially since some of the hosts of O. minor in N.Z. are more usually parasitised by other spp. elsewhere. An example is the European O. picridis Koch, which was recorded for N.Z. by Kirk, T., Trans. Proc. N.Z. Inst. 2: 106 (1870); in Europe this sp. usually parasitises Crepis spp. and Picris spp. Another reason for this over-recording of spp. is the sporadic occurrence of plants with a yellow corolla; such plants are sometimes treated as var. lutea Tourlet, which has at times been placed under other spp., but they are really only a colour form of O. minor. Other names recorded for N.Z. are O. amethystina, O. elatior, O. hydrocotylei, O. majus and O. minor var. concolor.