Colobanthus muelleri Kirk
C. billardieri var. brachypoda F. Muell. Veg. Chath. Is 1864, 11.
Type locality: Chatham Is. Type: ? Endemic.
Plant of distinct flat rosettes, us. few, each c. 1-2 cm. across. Branches us. few and very short, forming woody crown. Lvs green, firm, recurved; sheath broad, abruptly narrowed to blade; blade 10-15 × 1-1·5 mm. channelled above when dry, abruptly contracted into colourless apicula longer than width of adjacent part of If; peduncles < lvs but often standing erect from amongst them. Fls rather narrow at base; sepals 5, c. 4 mm. long, margin membr. and often inturned above, narrowed abruptly into definite apicula or short acicular tip; capsule 5-valved, often barely ⅔ length of sepals when mature.
DIST.: N. Plentiful on shores of Cook Strait. Cheeseman (Man. N.Z. Fl. 1925, 425) says "not uncommon from Manaia (Taranaki) . . . and the East Cape southwards . . . ". S., St., Ch. Coastal cliffs and fixed shingle.
FL. 9-4. FT. 11-4.
It is quite clear from specimens labelled by Kirk in W, A, and CM, that he included in his C. muelleri both coastal plants with recurved lvs and the inland plants with strict lvs later segregated by Cheeseman as C. strictus. Kirk's description refers more precisely to the coastal plant and, although the Chatham Is type of Mueller's C. billardieri var. brachypoda has not been seen, it seems safe to assume that it is of the coastal form. The only Ch. specimen in W fits Mueller's description well, and it matches Cook Strait specimens attributed by Kirk to C. muelleri.
Kirk (T.N.Z.I. 27, 1895, 356) described var. multicaulis from "a few scraps" from "Interior of Otago! J. Buchanan" - "Rigid, leaves . . . lax, spreading, . . . apiculate, . . . Sepals . . . acute or mucronate, equalling the capsule." From the description the plant hardly belongs to C. muelleri and No. 4071 in A (Interior of Otago, J. Buchanan, ex herb. T. Kirk), which may be regarded as the type, confirms this opinion. There is an even smaller scrap in W, without locality or collector, labelled by Kirk " C. billardieri var. multicaulis". The only other specimen so labelled is in Herb. D. Petrie (W., No. 1570, Mason Bay, Stewart Island, J. W. Murdoch) and this is undoubted C. muelleri.
