Flora of New Zealand Series

The essential parts of Hooker's description are: "Woody, rigid, branching, prostrate shrub, with numerous small white flowers . . .Stems 3-6 inches long, much branched; branches short, rigid, pubescent. Leaves 1/4 inch long, crowded, opposite, the bases of each pair united by two small blunt stipules, very coriaceous, elliptical, ovate or spathulate, blunt, nerveless, quite glabrous, entire and shining. Flowers 1 line long, two to three together, on axillary, stout, pubescent pedicels, which are shorter than the leaves, and furnished with opposite, subulate connate bracts. Calyx of five oblong, blunt, ciliated sepals. Corolla with a short tube and five veined, rounded, spreading, imbricated lobes, villous at the mouth. Stamens 5; filaments slender; anthers deeply two-lobed from the base upwards. Ovary very small, low, depressed; style erect, with a short club-shaped stigma . . . Northern Island. Ruahine Mountains, Colenso . . . I have seen no fruit of this plant, nor can I determine the nature of the ovariusm . . . It may prove to be a species of Geniostoma."

Oliver (N.Z.I. Sci. Tech. 4, 1921, 263) published a photograph of the type specimens and a copy of the original drawings, which show clearly the structure of the fl. From Colenso's account (cf. Bagnall and Petersen, "William Colenso", 1948) Oliver concluded that the plant was probably collected "east of Waiouru and north of Moawhango Township". I have seen the type sheet at K, some fragments sent to W from K, and others sent to G.O.K. Sainsbury (kindly forwarded to me on loan): branchlets slender, densely pubescent; lvs opp. or in opp. fascicles, on pubescent pedicels, ± ascending, ± 2 mm. long. Lamina coriac., obtuse, 3-5-(6) × 1-2.5-(3) mm.; shape various(linear to linear-oblong to narrow-spathulate to narrow-ovate-elliptic to narrow-obovate (on same branch). Stipules minute, interpetiolar, pubescent, rounded. Fls ± 2 mm. long on slender pubescent pedicels ± 1 mm. long; bracts minute. Sepals cut to ± half-way, ± 1 mm. long; lobes rounded triangular to subdeltoid, ciliolate. Corolla ± 2 mm. long, rotate; lobes white, ± 2 mm. long, fringed at throat, ciliolate on margins. Style short, stigma clavate.

Petrie collected specimens on "Peaty ground. Edge of Rangipo Desert. E. of Ruapehu. D. petrie 31-1-1916". He considered these to be L. depressa. Cheeseman (Man. N. Z. Fl. 1925, 722) agreed. The specimens are sterile; lvs 3-4-(5) × 2-3 mm., elliptic-oblong to subobovate, much more uniform in shape and size than in L. depressa. The plant appears to be a Coprosma closely related to, if not identical with, C. pumila.