Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Head of Cobb Valley, Nelson. Type: BD 54435, R. Mason, 23.2.1946.

Keel of lf sharp throughout and branches with lvs on often quadrangular. Infls all terminal and simple, the upward vegetative growth being continued by lateral shoots. Lowest bracts c. = adjacent lvs but more membr., broad to the top and ciliolate all round margin. Calyx-lobes hidden by bracts, to 5 mm. long, the anterior two not fused. Corolla-tube broadly funnel-shaped, not > calyx, lobes to 5 × 5 mm., broad. Capsule broadly ovate, very flat, little > calyx.

DIST.: S. Apparently widely distributed in the mountains of Nelson and probably extending to Buller area.

 Var. masonae fits every detail of Hooker's informal account of V. buxifolia given in comparison with V. odora in Fl. Antarct. 1, 1844, 62. Bentham's formal description of V. buxifolia, published two years later, mentions few of the features which distinguish H. odora from H. pauciramosa but the Dieffenbach specimens in K which have always been regarded as the type of V. buxifolia differ from H. pauciramosa in several respects, particularly in lf-margins which are "glabrous as if cut with a knife obliquely through the thick coriaceous leaf".

The var. is named in honour of Miss Ruth Mason who has collected widely in the Nelson district and there recognized some of the peculiar features of this plant.

FL. 10-2.