Flora of New Zealand Series

Huttonella compacta (Petrie) Kirk Stud. Fl. 1899, 115.

Type locality: Dunstan Gorge. Type: W, 224/490a, Petrie Herb., Petrie.

Erect fastigiately much-branched shrub up to c. 1 m. tall; ultimate branchlets ∞, wiry, terete, 1-2 mm. diam., striate, glab. Infl. us. of 1 raceme per notch; racemes (3)-5-(10)-fld, us. compact, on glab. peduncles up to 10 mm. long. Fls c. 5 × 5 mm., on glab. pedicels up to 4 mm. long. Calyx ± 2 × 2 mm., glab.; teeth acute. Standard dark purple near base, purple-veined and -flushed above; keel whitish, auricles bluntly pointed; wings white, purple-veined, auricles rounded. Ovary glab. Pods obliquely obovate-oblong, ± turgid, breadth > depth, 4-5 × 3 mm., stramineous (to brown, rarely black); valves reticulate; beak subulate, ± 1 mm. long. Seeds 1-2, yellowish, mottled with dark brown or black.

DIST.: S. Open ground, rocky places, and grassland, Central Otago.

Simpson's var. procumbens (loc. cit. 281) is described thus: "Branchlets stouter, brownish, procumbent, with the tips ascending; notches prominent. Flowers with a rosy pink standard. Pods black. Habitat: Rock and sandstone faces near Alexandra, Central Otago. Type specimen No. 456 ex author's herbarium."

I have seen only the type specimen and two sheets of isotype material (BD 45904B, and 45904A and C). The branchlets are but little stouter. Only three pods are left on the type specimen, and fewer on the isotypes. Pods in packets are dark brown to black, strongly reticulate, 5-6 × 3 mm. Some specimens from Kawarau Gorge of the upright form (e.g. BD 20945) have black pods or at least very dark brown, and dull black seeds. There are also forms of the upright habit with ± pubescent branchlets and calyces. The complex needs further study.