Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: near Mount White bridge, Poulter River. Type: W, L. Cockayne.

Liane or scandent shrub up to 8 m. amongst scrub, with stout woody base up to 2 cm. diam., sparingly branched below, with ∞ slender flexible branches above, not > 2 mm. diam. Juvenile and shade lvs spreading, up to 5 × 2 mm. on very short petioles, ovate-oblong, sub-coriac., subacute, mucronate, margins thickened; glab. above when mature, clad in white cobwebby tomentum below; mid lvs similar, but smaller and often reflexed. Lvs of final branchlets imbricate, appressed, linear-lanceolate, c. 3 × 1 mm., keeled on back and tomentose when young, clad in dense white woolly tomentum below. Capitula terminal, up to 3·5 mm. diam.; phyll. in several series forming a subcylindric involucre; outer oblong, pilose; inner narrow-oblong, scarious on margins, stramineous with brown tips. Florets 15-25 (all perfect?); achenes narrow-oblong, glab., pappus-hairs slender, ∞.

DIST.: S. Lower Poulter River to junction of Waimakariri River, thence to junction with Puffer's Creek and Esk River, lower Esk River.

Wall (T.N.Z.I. 52, 1920, 106) advances evidence to suggest that this liane is a hybrid between H. depressum and H. filicaule. But progeny tests in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens and by W. B. Brockie show that it comes "true" from seed.