Flora of New Zealand Series

"Stems creeping and rooting at nodes, leafy, moderately stout, glabrous. Leaves in opposite pairs, connate at the base, close-set and often over-lapping, 21/2-31/2 cm. long, 1-11/4 cm. broad, narrow elliptic-obovate, obtuse, contracted into rather broad flat petioles nearly as long as the blades, semi-membranous, glabrous, delicately repando-denticulate above the middle, reddish at the edges; veins evident, diverging from the conspicuous midrib. Peduncles short, elongating in fruit, slender, near the tips of the branches; calyxlobes lanceolate-subulate, acute, nearly equalling the rather broad slightly notched, pale-red petals. Capsules glabrous, rather stout, ± 5 cm. long, when mature on slender erect peduncles about as long as the capsules; seeds obovate, 1⅓ mm. long, delicately papillose.

"Hab. -Antipodes Island. B. C. Aston!

"The above description has been drawn up from specimens grown in my garden, and raised from seed obtained from dried capsules kindly sent me by Mr. Aston, whose specimens were all past flower."

I have been unable to locate any specimens of this and copy Petrie's account.

Petrie (T.N.Z.I. 53, 1921, 369) gives a note: "For a considerable time I have been satisfied that my Epilobium antipodum is no other than E. crassum Hook. f. The latter was in cultivation for a year or two in my garden, and chance seedlings of it grew up where the seeds of the Antipodes Island plant had been sown some considerable distance away. Satisfactory foliage-bearing pieces of the island plant had not been seen, hence the regrettable failure to recognize what had happened." As however Petrie described his plant as having the calyx-lobes "nearly equalling the rather broad slightly notched pale-red petals" I mention the "species" here, so that further study of the Epilobia of Antipodes Id may be made.