Flora of New Zealand Series

Braya novae-zelandiae Hook. f. Handbk N.Z. Fl. 1864, 13.

Type locality: "débris of schist on Mount Alta, alt. 5000 ft." Type: K, Hector and Buchanan.

Stock stout from a long fleshy taproot, often branched above, crowned by dense rosette of imbricating basal lvs. Radical lvs up to 3 cm. long, clad in stellate pubescence, obovate-oblong, narrowed into short flat petiole; lamina pinnatifid to subentire, lobes rounded to subacute. Cauline lvs smaller. Peduncles several, from below the lvs, up to c. 4 cm. long, with 2 to 5 fls. Sepals ± 2 mm. long; petals white, 3-4 mm. long, obovate-spathulate. Siliques 7-10 mm. long, c. 2 mm. wide, ± compressed. Seeds obovoid, c. 3-8 per valve, ± 1 mm. long, oblong in outline.

DIST.: S. Subalpine fellfield and debris slopes from lat. 44° to 45°, common in Central Otago, also occurs in Fiordland.

FL. 11-12. FT. 1-3.

Var. glabra (Buchan.) Kirk Stud. Fl. 1899, 33. P. glabra Buchan. in T.N.Z.I. 14, 1882, 344, t. 24, fig. 2. Lvs glab. or nearly so, rather larger, with longer acute lobes; peduncles with short linear lvs; fls rather larger. Dist.: S. Type locality: "Mountain range, head of Lake Ohou [Ohau], 5,000 feet alt. ― Buchanan and McKay, 1891". Also occurs on Ben Lomond, Lake Wakatipu. Buchanan says, "The present plant may probably be considered as only a form of Pachycladon novae-zelandiae, produced by climatic causes". Whether a habitat-induced form or genetically distinct is not certain. Cockayne and Allan (Ann. Bot., Lond. 48, 1934, 23) suggested that the intermediate forms known to occur were due to hybridism.