Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: "halfway up to the summit of Macrae's Run". Type: K, "Munro 34 Xmas 1853".

Dwarf robust shrub 5-15 cm. tall, with close-set erect branches and branchlets arising from stout stock ± 1 cm. diam., forming hard patches up to ± 2 dm. diam. Branchlets c. 2-4 mm. wide, much-compressed, slightly plano-convex, rigid, grooved, obtuse to subacute at apex. Infl. of solitary or paired lax racemes, 2-5-fld, on slender pilose peduncles. Fls 6-10 × 4-6 mm., on subfiliform pilose pedicels ± 5 mm. long. Calyx c. 3 × 2 mm., appressed-hairy, teeth triangular, acute; standard white, purple-veined, with purple basal blotch; keel ± = standard, c. 3 mm. wide, auricles rounded; wings ± 1 × 1 mm., whitish with basal greenish blotch, auricles rounded. Ovary glab. Pods ± 15 × 4 mm., very dark brown to black, ± wrinkled, subfalcate; beak ± 1 mm., stout, slightly curved. Seeds 8-12, ± 2 mm. diam., yellowish, black-mottled.

DIST.: S. Lowland to higher montane gravelly and rocky places from lat. 41° to 46°, mainly east of divide.

Macrae's Run was in the Awatere Valley, but the "summit" referred to may be on the southern side of the river, not on the northern as Simpson assumed. In the type cover at K are three similar pieces c. 15 cm. long, on one sheet. Branchlets up to 5 cm. long, thick, flattened, grooved, ± 4 mm. wide; fls c. 10 mm. long; calyx (2.5 mm. long) and pedicels appressed-hairy. Racemes 3-6-fld.