Ischnocarpus novae-zelandiae (Hook.f.) O.E.Schulz
Sisymbrium novae-zelandiae Hook. f. Handbk N.Z. Fl. 1864, 11.
Type locality: "shingle slips Wairau Gorge, alt. 4500 ft."
Stock rather slender with deeply descending taproot, crowned by rosette of basal lvs. Radical lvs up to 10 cm. long, us. shorter, clad in stellate hairs; narrow- to broad-spathulate, narrowed into flat petiole, subentire to bluntly pinnatifid to pinnatisect. Lower cauline lvs spathulate to linear, entire or lobed, c. 2-1 cm. long; uppermost much reduced. Stems up to 30 cm. tall, slender, stiff, sparingly branched, ± stellate-pubescent, produced into slender racemes elongating in fr. Sepals c. 1·5 mm. long, oblong, subacute to obtuse and hooded, with scattered hairs towards apex, margins hyaline. Petals white, c. 3 mm. long, narrow-spathulate, long- clawed. Siliques glab., almost straight to arcuate, ± 3-5 cm. × 1 mm.: style minute; pedicels subpatent, c. 1-1·5 cm. long. Seeds ∞, c. 0·5- 0.75 mm. long, light brown.
DIST.: S. Lowland to higher montane tussock-grassland, bare places, and substable screes, from lat. 41° 30' to 45° 30', east of divide.
FL. 9-2. FT. 10-3.
A plant (BD 79607) collected on a dry hillside near Alexandra by I. A. McNeur has all basal lvs entire or nearly so, broad-ovate to ovate-oblong up to 1 × 1 cm., on very slender petioles up to 1·5 cm. long; cauline lvs similar, gradually reduced towards raceme; pedicels filiform.
