Flora of New Zealand Series

Perennial herb, often with thick or fairly thick caulorrhiza. Hairs soft, retrorse or antrorse, usually appressed and often short, rarely spreading. Stems slender, prostrate, sometimes spreading to suberect, usually with retrorse hairs, sometimes glabrescent at base; branches few to many. Basal lvs not generally persistent through growing season; petioles to c. 17 cm long; hairs retrorse, dense or moderately dense, occasionally scattered. Lamina to 4 cm diam., reniform to orbicular or broadly ovate, lobed to c. ⅞ way to midrib, sometimes shallowly lobed; lobes usually 3-5, narrowly to broadly obovate-cuneate or almost oblong, with few to many appressed hairs on both sides, rounded to acute or mucronate at apex; larger lobes usually with 2 ± oblong secondary lobes. Cauline lvs smaller, with fewer lobes. Peduncles (with pedicels) 1-6-(9) cm long, filiform, with dense, retrorse hairs; bracteoles linear to lanceolate; fls 1-(2). Sepals 3-5-(6) × 0.8-2-(2.5) mm, ± lanceolate to elliptic or elliptic-oblong, usually with a purple marginal line, sometimes completely purple; hairs usually appressed, at least in distal 1/2, sometimes long and glandular, occasionally few. Petals (4)-6-9 × 2.5-4.5 mm, broadly obovate, white. Mericarps 2-2.8 mm long, with moderately dense hairs; beak (6)-7-11 mm long. Seed 1.5-1.9 mm long, oblong, ± smooth, very rarely finely reticulate.

N.: Volcanic Plateau and Bay of Plenty southwards; S.: Nelson southwards; St.; A., Ant., C.

Endemic.

Widespread and common; grasslands, herbfields, rocky slopes and cliffs, river banks, bogs, scrub, open forest and forest margins, lowland to alpine.

FL Oct-Feb.

Allan (1961) treated G. potentilloides Hook. f. non DC. as a synonym of G. microphyllum and presumably considered G. potentilloides DC. to be based on an Australian plant. Carolin (op. cit.) concluded that G. potentilloides DC. is based on a NZ type and, as this is the earlier name, treated G. microphyllum as a synonym of it. Here G. potentilloides is accepted as a distinct sp. distinguished from G. microphyllum, in addition to the characters given in the key, by its more slender caulorrhiza, less straggling habit, and more deeply lobed lvs. Also G. potentilloides often grows in modified habitats whereas G. microphyllum rarely does. The 2 spp. may occur together and when they do there are no intermediates (A. P. Druce, pers. comm.).

Even as circumscribed here, G. microphyllum remains a variable sp. Plants from the Volcanic Plateau and the Dunedin area have long, spreading, glandular hairs on the calyx and pedicel. In many populations lvs may be purple to red beneath and green, bronze or sometimes mottled above. Allan (1961) accepted 3 vars; var. obtusatum Simpson et J. Thomson and var. discolor Simpson et J. Thomson (including plants with mottled lvs) are not considered distinct from the type var. here.