Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Auckland Is. Type: K, "pebbly beach", Hooker.

Herb up to 1 m. tall; branches decumbent and rooting at base, then erect, up to 1 m. tall, up to 1 cm. diam., subsucculent. Young branchlets, petioles and infl.-axes with sparse hairs or glab.; stinging hairs few. Lvs 10-15 × 8-14 cm., on stout petioles up to 5 cm. long; lamina broadly ovate-cordate to suborbicular, acute or obtuse, coarsely dentate-serrate, almost free of stinging hairs; sts a lateral pair of lflts developed on petiole; teeth up to 1 cm. long, sinus acute. Stipules lanceolate, up to 2 cm. long, us. bifid. Staminate infl. of 1-3 branched spikes up to 7 cm. long, per. glabrate; pistillate similar, fls densely arranged, per. glabrate. Achenes elliptic in outline, 1·5-2 mm. long, pale brown.

DIST.: Islets of Foveaux Strait; Chalky Id, entrance to Chalky Sound; Ch., A., C., Ant. Coastal forest, forest margins and sea-strand.

FL. 12-1.

Hooker (loc cit.) remarks: "Planta maritima paulo diversa, humilior, crassior, foliis minoribus petiolis superne, stipulisque majoribus setosis". Specimens collected on recent excursions suggest that the differences are due to habitat. In K there is a specimen of Bidwill's "south end, N. Zealand" attributed in the Handbook to "Northern Island, southern extreme".