Flora of New Zealand Series

red tarweed

Glandular-hairy herb with erect, usually simple stems to c. 30 cm tall. Lvs 5-15 × 3-8 mm, ovate or lanceolate, deeply toothed or lobed; margins somewhat revolute. Infl. = or > non-flowering part when fully developed. Bracts mostly reduced. Calyx c. 10 mm long, glandular-hairy, mainly on nerves; teeth c. 4 mm long, triangular, with margin and apex purple. Corolla 12-15 mm long (to apex of upper lip), persistent around capsule; lobes and upper tube crimson-purple, with crimson-purple hairs (at least in upper part); upper lip 4-5 mm long, white-hairy inside; lower lip lobes united in lower part and with 2, large, elliptic, glandular concavities; middle lobe 1-1.5 mm long. Filaments glabrous except at base. Capsule 7-8 mm long, lanceolate-oblong, glabrous. Seeds c. 0.25 mm long, fusiform.

N.: mostly Hawke's Bay and N. Wairarapa, but collected from as far north as Otorohanga (Waikato) and as far south as the Wellington area.

S. and W. Europe, Macaronesia 1940

Occasional pasture weed, usually or always parasitising Trifolium spp.

FL Oct-Dec.

Red tarweed has been recorded previously in N.Z. as Bartsia latifolia.