Flora of New Zealand Series

Perennial. Stems erect, densely puberulent but becoming glabrous with age, to 50 cm tall, branching above. Lvs hairy; marginal hairs coarser than surface hairs but triangular or 2-lobed denticles 0. Basal and lower stem lvs falling before fruiting, linear-lanceolate, pinnatisect to serrate, 10-40 × 1-2.5 mm. Upper stem lvs linear-oblong, entire or 3-fid at apex, abruptly narrowed or auriculate at base, 8-12-(20) × 0.8-1.5-(2) mm. Racemes 4-8-(12) cm long; rachis densely puberulent; pedicels densely puberulent, erecto-patent, (2.5)-3-4 mm long at fruiting. Sepals hairy, green or purple, 0.5-0.8 × 0.2-0.3 mm. Petals white, minute. Stamens 2. Silicles narrow-ovate to rhomboid, 2.7-3 × 1.8-2-(2.2) mm; stigma almost sessile, included in shallow notch; valves usually purple, glabrous or sometimes hairy when young. Seed oblong, brown, not winged, c. 1.4 mm long.

N.: Wellington; S.: Nelson, Canterbury, Otago, Southland; K.

Australia 1979

Waste land, roadsides, sand dunes, stony places.

L. desvauxii and L. africanum are the only other common narrow-fruited hairy Lepidium spp. in N.Z. L. hyssopifolium is distinguished from L. desvauxii by the absence of broadly triangular marginal denticles on the upper lvs, by its more stiffly erect habit, and by its much narrower silicles, and from hairy forms of L. africanum by the rhomboid or narrow-ovate silicles, the lvs hairy on both surfaces and the uniformly hairy pedicels.