Flora of New Zealand Series

G. potentil-loides Hook. f. Fl. N.Z 1, 1852, 40 non L'Hér. ex DC. Prodr. 1, 1824, 639.

G. retrorsum A. Cunn. in Ann. nat. Hist. 3, 1839, 317 non L'Hér. ex DC. Prodr. 1, 1824, 644.

Type locality: Auckland Id. Type: K, J. D. Hooker.

Stock simple or with few branches, slender, merging into deeply descending taproot. Stems very slender, few to many, prostrate to straggling, up to 30 cm. or more long, often much-branched. Branchlets, petioles, laminae, peduncles and calyx rather thinly to ± densely clad in appressed retrorse white hairs. Lvs on very slender petioles up to ± 15 cm. long; lamina thin, (5)-10-20-(25) mm. diam., reniform in outline, cut to halfway or more into (3)-5-7 obcuneate lobes; lobes again divided into 1-5 oblong-cuneate, apiculate teeth. Stipules small, linear-acuminate. Peduncles 1-2-fld, up to ± 1 cm. long; fls ± 8 mm. diam.; sepals narrow-ovate to lanceolate, ± 3 mm. long, awned; petals white occ. pinkish, ± 5 mm. long, entire to retuse, sts with several blunt teeth, obovate, clawed. Carpels smooth, with appressed hairs, ± 10 mm. long including beak. Seeds finely striate-reticulate.

DIST.: N., S., St., A., C. Lowland and montane grassland throughout, occ. in rocky places.

FL.- FT. 10-2.

A rather polymorphic sp. that apparently hybridizes with G. sessiliflorum. Its relationship to Australian and Tasmanian spp. needs further study. Knuth (loc. cit. 151) records it for S. E. Australia and Tasmania, and as "Eingeschleppt in Chile"