Flora of New Zealand Series

pinwheel aeonium

Small, bushy, much-branched shrub to c. 60 cm high, often forming a dense spreading clump; stems to c. 1.5 cm diam.; lf scars indistinct. Rosettes terminal, mostly 5-11-(14) cm diam., rather flattened. Outer rosette lvs to c. 7-(9) × 3-(3.5) cm, (3)-5-7 mm thick, obovate to broadly obovate- spathulate, usually glaucous, occasionally ± glaucescent (especially if shaded), glabrous on both surfaces, ± concave above and slightly keeled and convex on lower surface; margins ciliolate, red at least towards the mucronate apex. Flowering shoots terminal but vegetative growth often continued from lateral branches beneath; axis moderately stout, spreading, red, glabrous, with leaflike bracts numerous and somewhat decreasing towards infl. Infl. a broadly pyramidal panicle, rounded at the top, usually 10-24 cm long and nearly as wide; fls ± densely secund along branches. Calyx lobes 3-6 mm long, glabrous, narrowly triangular, triangular or triangular-ovate. Petals (6)-8-10, 8-12 × 2-4 mm, linear-elliptic, lanceolate-elliptic, or ± elliptic, whitish or cream, often with a pink flush and a green keel outside, sometimes pale yellow. Stamens white or pink, the inner whorl 5.5-9.5 mm long, the outer whorl usually slightly shorter or sometimes slightly longer. Carpels white or pinkish. Scales 0.5-1 mm long, square or ± rectangular, often emarginate. Seeds 0.6-0.7 mm long, obovoid-oblong, minutely longitudinally streaked.

N.: Rangitoto Id (Auckland), Whakatane (Bay of Plenty), Wellington area; S.: Port Hills (Christchurch), Otago Peninsula.

Canary Is 1959

Coastal areas on steep banks, rocks and cliffs, lava rubble, usually in dry and sunny places, sometimes in low open scrub.

FL Oct-Dec-(Feb).

A. haworthii is easily the commonest naturalised aeonium and thrives best on dry, volcanic rocks which must resemble its habitat on the island of Teneriffe, for example at Sumner, Christchurch, where high seaward cliffs support a very large population. In N.Z. it is also the most variable sp., particularly in size of lf and colour of the various parts of the fl. Most descriptions of this sp. give petal colour as pale yellow but in N.Z. the colour is usually white or pinkish. If the petals are pale yellow the lvs are likely to be ± green rather than glaucous. At Breaker Bay on the Wellington coast plants of a larger-leaved form corresponding to cv. `Major' grow alongside the ordinary form. The fl. parts of cv. 'Major' are no larger than those of the common form. The sp. spreads by seed and vegetative means - the detached shoots root very readily as in other aeoniums.

In N.Z., pinwheel aeonium was first recorded as A. ciliatum (Willd.) Webb et Berth., but this is a larger plant with a ± arborescent habit and thick stems covered in rough tubercles between the lf scars; it is not known to occur in N.Z.