Flora of New Zealand Series

Pogonia debilis Andr. in Bot. Repos. 3, 1802, t. 212.

Type locality: Australia.

Low-growing shrub "covering large area of ground"; branches slender, semi-trailing, to 50 cm. or more long but flowering at 30 cm. or less; branchlets reddish, c. 1 mm. diam., obscurely tuberculate. Lvs about 4-8 cm. × 5-10 mm., narrow linear-lanceolate, subacute, sessile with narrow winged base; margins entire except near apex and base, teeth small, acute, the lowest ± backwardly directed (small lvs often dentate throughout); lamina submembr., glab., with very obscure pellucid spots. Fls 1-2 in lf-axil, pedicels 4-5 mm. long. Calyx-lobes 5-7 × 2 mm., elongating to 8-9 mm. in fruit, narrow-lanceolate, acute, us. entire. Corolla purplish, 6-8 mm. long, narrow campanulate, lobes shorter than tube, subequal, the anterior us. broader than the others, subobtuse, villous within. Stamens 4, about equal to corolla-tube. Style c. 5 mm. long, often persisting in mature fr. Ovary 2-loculed. Drupe globular, c. 9 × 10 mm. but size varying considerably on one branch; white below, flushed with reddish purple above; the included pyrene stony, c. 5 × 5 mm., laterally compressed and ± biconvex, slightly emarginate and faintly grooved on flatter faces.

DIST.: N. Known only from the sea-coast between Raglan and Kawhia, R. O. Green.

FL. 4-5. FT. 5-9.

The above description is based on N.Z. material; a fruiting twig (A 26196) from southwestern New South Wales differs from N.Z. specimens in little except shorter internodes and thicker lvs with fewer larger teeth. The sp. is apparently cultivated in England and is also offered by some nurserymen in Australia but plants growing on a very remote part of the N.Z. coast are very unlikely to be of garden origin. R. O. Green reports that on 18 April 1956 he followed the careful directions of an informant of over 80 years who had seen the plants in his boyhood, and a group of some 50-60 was discovered, exactly as described. A plant and cuttings brought into cultivation have provided flowering and fruiting herbarium specimens and seeds have germinated successfully.