Flora of New Zealand Series

Small annual herb, not forming mats or clumps; stems simple, 3-15 cm long, slender, erect, not rooting at nodes; branches few and mainly from base. Lvs connate at base, 2-4 × 0.5-1.3 mm, c. 0.5 mm thick, lanceolate or ovate- lanceolate, flattened above, moderately convex beneath; apex acute to acuminate. Fls in small cymose clusters in lf axils, not star-like, 4-merous, 1-3 mm diam.; pedicels < 1- c. 4 mm long at anthesis, at least some 3-6 mm long and generally much > lvs at fruiting. Calyx lobes c. 1-1.3 × 0.2-0.3 mm, triangular-lanceolate or narrowly triangular, short- to long-acuminate. Petals 0.5-0.8 × c. 0.1 mm, ± lanceolate, rose to red or brownish green with red or pink tips, acuminate, < calyx. Scales 0.2-0.3 mm long, very narrowly spathulate. Follicles smooth. Seed 0.25-0.5 mm long.

N.: Mangonui County and offshore islands (N. Auckland), Rangitoto Id, Auckland City, East Cape to Wellington; S.: common in Marlborough, Canterbury and C. Otago, occasional in Nelson, Westland, Otago Peninsula.

Also indigenous to Australia.

Mainly in drier eastern areas, dry, open ground, often steep slopes, rock outcrops and cliffs, sometimes poor, stony pastures.

FL Sep-Jan.

C. tetramera is very closely related to C. sieberiana and was not distinguished from that sp. by Allan (1961); it was treated as C. sieberiana subsp. tetramera Tölken by Toelken (1981, op. cit.). These 2 taxa are not only separated by the characters given in the key but they seldom occur together, at least in N.Z., and where they do, there are no intermediates. Plants of C. tetramera seem to be much more strictly annual than are those of C. sieberiana but this may be partly because the latter usually grow in moister areas. Similarly, the greater redness of most plants of C. tetramera may be at least partly attributable to their occurrence in drier areas. Both spp. are illustrated in Fl. S. Australia 1 (Jessop, J. P. and Toelken, H. R., Eds, 1986).