Flora of New Zealand Series

Type: BD 45580A (G. S. 278) G. Simpson and J. S. Thomson, Feb. 1938.

Prostrate much-branched summer-lfy shrub, forming mats up to c. 2 m. diam. Branchlets 1-2 mm. diam., compressed, sparsely hairy. Lvs 1-3-(5)-foliolate; lflts sessile, c. 4 × 3 mm., obcordate, pilose. Racemes 1-3 per notch, densely 2-7-fld, on peduncles ± 4 mm. long. Fls c. 5 × 5 mm., on pedicels ± 3 mm. long. Calyx c. 2 × 2 mm.; teeth minute. Standard purple-veined; keel whitish, auricles rounded; wings white, purple-flushed towards apex, auricles rounded. Ovary glab. Pods obliquely oblong, 7-8 × 3-4 mm., dark brown, slightly compressed; beak 1-2 mm. long, slender. Seeds 2-4, yellowish green, black-mottled.

DIST.: S. Shingle-beaches, shores of Lake Ellesmere.

Status uncertain, the plants needing further cultural study. Wall (T.N.Z.I. 61, 1930, 169) says: "The most remarkable single species of the locality is the prostrate form of Carmichaelia subulata, called by Cockayne an 'epharmone' of that species. This really exists in three fairly well marked forms or grades. Sometimes it is perfectly prostrate, the single plant forming a circular patch about six feet in diameter, but all branches proceeding from one stem without any tendency to root in creeping . . . Then there are intermediate forms, from two to three feet in height, not truly prostrate yet not as tall and erect as the species usually is. And there are also plenty of plants which grow to six feet or more in height . . . The extreme prostrate form is of course due to wind-pressure." Simpson (loc. cit. 264) rejects wind-pressure as the cause of the habit: "the branches point straight out in all directions as they would do only under a pressure vertically directed. Seedlings, too, in cultivation, spread their earliest branches close to the ground, and they grow to the adult state without any tendency to rise."

In view of the habits assumed by a number of spp. in similar strongly insolated habitats (e.g. Coprosma propinqua, Senecio lautus, Linum monogynum) it appears likely that C. appressa is a habitat-modified form.