Flora of New Zealand Series

parsley piert

Small, often ± slender, sparsely pilose, greyish green to yellowish green herb, sparingly to much-branched near base, 15-80-(200) mm high, ± decumbent; stems usually slender, long-pilose; internodes usually visible. Lvs cauline; petiole up to 3 mm long and winged; blade (3)-4-6-(8) × 4-8-(10) mm, 3-partite with each segment ± flabellate and shallowly to deeply divided into 2-5-(7), oblong, obtuse or subacute lobes, with scattered hairs or silky pilose on both surfaces; stipules to 3-(4.5) mm long, adnate to petiole, divided into several lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate lobes. Infl. axillary, of small cymes, ± sessile, usually < and hidden by investing stipules; fls sessile or shortly pedicellate. Fr. 1-1.7 mm long; hypanthium ellipsoid, flattened, slightly narrowed below teeth, pale yellow to brown, ribbed, with short hairs, often dense especially in upper part; calyx teeth 0.3-0.5 mm long, triangular to oblong, ± connivent, usually with short hairs on back and sometimes with long hairs on margins; epicalyx minute or 0.

N.; S.: throughout, especially in drier areas; C.

W., C. and N. Europe 1954

Wasteland, roadsides, lawns, cultivated land, pasture, short tussock grassland up to c. 700 m.

FL Oct-Feb-(Jul).

This sp. has been present in N.Z. at least since 1877 but before 1954 was not distinguished from A. arvensis. At that time N.Z. plants were referred to A. microcarpa (Boiss. et Reuter) Rothm. In a recent revision of the A. microcarpa complex, Lippert, W., Mitt. Bot. Staatssamm. (München) 20: 451-464 (1984), distinguished 3 spp.: A. microcarpa sens. strict. (Iberian Peninsula, Morocco and Macaronesia), A. minutiflora (Azn.) Holub (Mediterranean) and A. inexspectata. N.Z. material agrees well with Lippert's description and illustration of A. inexspectata in the shape of the stipular teeth, and the size and shape of the fruiting hypanthium, calyx and epicalyx, but differs in that the calyx teeth are usually hairy and sometimes ciliate, the latter being a character of A. microcarpa. A. inexspectata is easily distinguished from A. australiana by the hairy, ± connivent fruiting calyx teeth (Fig. 98) and from A. arvensis by the distinctly smaller frs.