Flora of New Zealand Series

Montia australasica (Hook. f.) Pax et Hoffm. in Pflanzenfam. 16C, 1934, 259.

Glab. ± succulent perennial herb with slender to rather stout branching stems creeping, rooting at nodes; forming dense to loose patches up to 15 cm. or more across; stems often expanded and cormose at intervals, roots often bearing pale cormose submoniliform starch-rich swellings up to 2 cm. long. Lvs on filiform petioles (0·5)-1-(3) cm. long, expanded into a scarious sheath below, alt. or in alt. clusters; lamina (0·5)-1-5 cm. long, filiform to narrow-linear to narrow-spathulate, obtuse to subacute. Fls up to 2 cm. diam., solitary or paired or in few-fld racemes, on slender peduncles 1-3 cm. long. Sepals 2, enclosing petals in bud, ovate-oblong to suborbicular, ± 3 mm. diam.; petals us. white, sts rose, 6-8 mm. long, obovate. Capsule ± globose; seeds us. 3, ± 1·5 mm. diam, lenticular, smooth, glossy, dark brown to black.

DIST.: N., S., St. Montane to subalpine streamsides, wet grassland and herb-field from lat. 39° southwards; occ. on screes and dry ground, descending to nearly sealevel in places on east coast of S.

FL. 11-1. FT. 12-2. Also in Tasmania, Australia.

Easily cultivated and would repay experimental study. Buchanan (T.N.Z.I. 3, 1871, 210) describes two vars: "Var. a. biflora. Leaves fasciculate and single on the same plant, 1 in. long. Flowers in pairs, or sometimes two pairs on the same scape, shorter than the leaves. Hab.-Mount Egmont, 6000 ft. Collected by J. Buchanan. Var. b. racemosa. Leaves fasciculate and in pairs on the same plant, 2 in. long. Racemes of 4-7 flowers, pink, much larger than the leaves. Bracts large, membranous. Hab.-Dun Mountain, 4000 ft. Collected by Henry H. Travers."

C. calycina Col. in T.N.Z.I. 28, 1896, 592 is accepted by Pax and Hoffman, loc. cit. and transferred to Montia. Colenso's specimens are from "Ruahine Mountain-range: Mr. A. Olsen; 1895". He distinguishes it from C. australasica by the 2-3-fld scape, the much larger calyx, the differently shaped anthers, and the bifid stigma. The calyx is given as half as long as the corolla, and the anthers as oblong.

Simpson (T.R.S.N.Z. 79, 1952, 420) described his var. sessiliflora from material collected "from the Cardrona River bed near Ballantyne's Bridge, Wanaka". "Stems almost filiform, broken at intervals by corm-like expansions 1-2 cm. long . . . Flowers solitary, almost or quite sessile." Similar forms are occ. met with in dry places in S. Type: BD 60027, Dec. 1946, G. Simpson. Most of the fls are distinctly stalked, some stalks up to 1 cm. long.