Flora of New Zealand Series

P. edgerleyi Hook. f. Handbk N.Z. Fl. 1864, 43, pro parte.

Type locality: "Lofty hills lat. 36°, about 20 miles from sea coast". Type: K, Edgerley "Pomaderris ? sp.". Endemic.

Low-growing or straggling shrub rarely to 1 m. tall. Lvs inclined to lie in one plane, 15-25-(30) × 7-10-(15) mm., broad-elliptic to elliptic-oblong, minutely apiculate, slightly toothed at veins, margins not recurved, petiole 3-5 mm. long; upper surface scabrid with stiff simple unicellular hairs, veins depressed; lower surface with stellate hairs, sessile ones forming a close white cover, shortly stalked ones ferruginous and ∞, especially on the prominent veins. Infl. of compact short-stalked ± globular clusters, axillary or a few bunched terminally; outer bracts stramineous, broad-ovate with close cover of sessile stellate hairs; buds elongated, pale; pedicels 1-2 mm. long. Fls pale, c. 4 mm. diam.; calyx-tube > 1 mm. long, villous with long hairs; sepals c. 1·5 mm. long; petals 0; style divided to c. 1/3 length; capsule 3 mm. long, narrow, c. 2/3 immersed in calyx-tube, pale except for dark hairs on upper surface, losing sepals early; operculum c. 1/2 coccus-length; seeds long, 1·9 × 1 mm., dark brown.

DIST.: N. North Cape Peninsula, Scott's Point, Parengarenga, coast from Maunganui Bluff to N. Kaipara Head and for some miles inland. In low scrub on poor clay hills.

FL. 10. FT. 11-1.

Edgerley's "fragment" described by Hooker (Fl. N.Z. 1, 1852, 46) was unmistakably this plant, but the description of P. edgerleyi in the Handbook includes some features shown only by flowerless plants (almost certainly of P. rugosa) received later from Mercury Bay (Mr. Joliffe, Fl. N.Z. 2, 1855, 327), and others with "many flowered racemes" (= P. oraria var. novae-zelandiae) from Mt. Manaia (Dr. Sinclair, see Cheeseman Ill. N.Z. Fl. 1, 1914, Plate 28).

The N.Z. var. is very close to some forms of the Australian P. prunifolia but seems to differ in its constantly low habit; both in the wild and in cultivation it grows horizontally rather than vertically, and only when it is drawn up by other plants does it reach 1 m. high; growing undisturbed on top of a road-bank it tends to droop down rather than to grow erect. Other constant characters not seen in Australian specimens are (a) close even cover of short stiff very erect simple hairs on upper If-surface, (b) calyx-tube > 3/4 length of free sepal (little > 1/2 in Australian plants), (c) paler indumentum of the whole calyx which includes some long simple hairs but is never shaggy-villous.

Kirk's record (Stud. Fl. 1899, 92) of P. edgerleyi at Waipu is more likely to be based on either P. rugosa or P. oraria var. novae-zelandiae. No recent record is known of any of these three at Waipu.