Flora of New Zealand Series

Robust, scrambling shrub; primocanes arching, purplish, angled and flat to slightly concave between, with few subsessile and numerous long-stalked glandular hairs and sparsely to moderately clothed in mostly simple hairs; armature of many, stout, erect to slightly deflexed prickles mostly on angles, and numerous pricklets on faces and angles. Young stems hairy and glandular. Leaflets (3)-5, sparsely pilose on upper surface, sparsely to moderately pilose (especially on veins) but not tomentose on lower surface, 1-2-serrate and sometimes lobed; terminal leaflet lamina ovate to almost orbicular, acuminate, 65-140 × 50-110 mm, with petiolule 1/4-⅓ length of lamina. Stipules linear to narrow-lanceolate. Infl. densely hairy, with subsessile and numerous long-stalked glands. Sepals long-attenuate, tomentose and with longer simple hairs, with pricklets. Petals rounded at apex, smooth, pink. Anthers glabrous.

S.: Leith Valley (Dunedin) and Beaumont (Otago).

Europe 1988

Roadsides, scrubby hillsides, waste places.

FL Dec-Feb.

In the stem hairs and pricklets R. erythrops is very similar to R. echinatus but differs in the less distinctly toothed lvs and shorter prickles (the longest mostly 3-5 mm long).

Some specimens collected from Leith Valley, Dunedin (e.g., CHR 416159, Given 13705, 18.5.1984), have stems with sparse to abundant glands, petals white with a pink flush and crinkled, and leaflets ± obovate and pale green to whitish below. These are probably hybrids between R. erythrops and R. ulmifolius.