Flora of New Zealand Series

E. berggrenii Wettst. Mon. Gatt. Euphr. 1896, 265.

Type locality: Kelly's Hill, Otira. Type: W, 4025, D. Petrie, Jan. 1893. Type locality of E. berggrenii: "in alpibus inter flumen Bealey et Otira".

Slender erect ± succulent annual herb 5-10 cm. tall, sparingly branched from base, branches pilose with lax transparent hairs and us. dense long jointed glandular hairs. Lvs sessile, rather distant, 4-12 × 3-10 mm., quadrate-ovate to suborbicular in outline with 2-4 pairs of subacute to acute teeth, cuneate at base, scabrid with stiff appressed hairs, especially on thickened revolute margins, and us. densely pilose with long jointed glandular and smaller non-glandular hairs. Fls few or several pairs towards the tips of the branches, sessile or on pedicels up to 4 mm. long. Calyx 5-8 mm. long (sts up to 10 × 6 mm. in fr.), pubescent as lvs, subevenly divided ?-1/2 way; lobes acute, margins and midribs thickened. Corolla bright yellow, 10-12 mm. long; tube ± = or > calyx; lobes of lower lip up to 3 mm. wide, shallowly emarginate. Anthers golden yellow, margins hairy, awns us. very unequal. Capsule > calyx, 5-8 × 4-5 mm., obovate to pyriform, glab.; seeds 6-8 per locule, 1·5-2 mm. long.

DIST.: S. Montane to subalpine boggy and open places from c. lat. 42° to 43°.

FL.- FT. 1-3.

On the Paparoa Range plants are rather uniformly luxuriant with long glandular hairs abundant and the stiff appressed scabridity obscured or almost absent. At Arthur Pass and other localities where it occurs in company with E. zelandica the pubescence is very variable; sts the flattened white hairs characteristic of the latter sp. occur on the lvs and glandular hairs may be absent, the fine stiff pubescence of margins and veins then similar to that of E. cheesemanii. Gradation also in habit and in size and colour of corolla is noted under E. zelandica.