Euphrasia revoluta Hook.f.
Type locality: Ruahine Range. Type: K, Colenso 1593.
Low tufted perennial herb sts with woody stock up to 2 mm. diam.; stems slender, rooting at nodes and stoloniferous, branches ∞, erect, up to c. 5 cm. tall, slender to filiform, white-pubescent. Lvs sessile, us. rather close-set, 2-10 × 1-5 mm., narrow- to rhomboid-cuneate with 1 pair of small acute teeth below large triangular or rounded terminal lobe, glab., margins thickened and revolute. Fls single or few at tips of branches, subsessile or on white-pubescent pedicels up to c. 5 mm. long. Calyx 5-8 mm. long, white-pubescent, evenly or subevenly divided c. ⅓ way; lobes acute to subacute, margins and midribs thickened and reddish. Corolla white, 10-15 mm. long and diam.; tube us. much > calyx; lobes of lower lip 3-5 mm. wide, entire or shallowly emarginate. Anthers red-brown, margins hairy, awns unequal, stout. Capsule ± = calyx, c. 6-7 × 3-4 mm., oblong to obovate, sparsely setose at apex; seeds ∞, 1-1·5 mm. long.
DIST.: N., S. Plentiful in subalpine boggy and open places, tussock-grassland and herbfield, from Ruahine and Tararua Ranges southwards.
FL. 12-2-(3). FT. 1-3.
Plants varying markedly in size, habit, lf-shape, pubescence and floral characters have hitherto been included under this name, but those matching the type constitute a well-defined and easily recognizable taxon to which the name is here restricted. Most Nelson specimens in E. revoluta folders belong to the closely related E. townsonii, which differs most obviously in long pedicels and glandular-hairy calyx. Other plants sts included are referable rather to E. laingii, while E. drucei and E. petriei are two further segregants from the complex.
