Var. dumosa
Type locality: Red Hills, Wairau. Type: A, Cheeseman, Jan. 1882.
Low densely bushy shrub, with rigid divaricate branches; bark whitish to dark grey, becoming darker with age; branchlets short, rigid, divaricate, ± entangled, clad in white appressed hairs when young. Lvs opp. or in opp. fascicles, on slender subglab. petioles c. 1 mm. long. Lamina thick, coriac., linear-oblong to very narrowly elliptic-oblong, obtuse, (4-5)-9-10 × (0·5)-1-2 mm. Reticulations of veins us. visible below. Drupe bright red, globose, ± 3 mm. diam.
DIST.: N., S. Upper forest margins and shrubland: boggy ground between Mount Egmont and Pouakai range, Ruahine and Tararua ranges to c. lat. 42º and probably further south.
Var. dumosa is possibly worthy of specific rank, but needs cultural treatment. Cheeseman (Man. N.Z. Fl. 1925, 866) comments, "Probably only a stunted mountain form". Oliver (loc. cit. 60) relegates this var. to synonymy.
The sp. as at present understood is another ill-resolved complex. Oliver (loc. cit. 60-61) considers: "This species exists in 2 distinct forms, characterized by the color of the drupes. Either they are dark-purple, as is prevalent in the district in which the type was collected, or they are white and translucent. Intermediate colors are found, but these are presumed to be due to hybridism . . . The 2 forms of C. parviflora apparently hybridize, as drupes of various shades of pink have been found. I discovered pale-pink drupes at Waimarino, and Cockayne noted on the labels of specimens from Kellys Creek that the fruits were bright-pink." Sorensen (D.S.I.R. Cape Exped. Ser. Bull. 7, 1951, 33) for Campbell Id remarks: "Almost all specimens seem to show more or less crossing with C. ciliata, with drupes coloured white, pink, orange and red."
