Cuphea hyssopifolia Kunth
Small, dense shrub to c. 50 cm high, much-branched. Stems purplish, angled when young, densely and minutely puberulent as well as having much longer, purple, antrorse hairs. Lvs subsessile or with petiole < 1 mm long. Lamina 7-25 × 2-5 mm, linear to narrow-elliptic, with short, appressed, antrorse hairs on veins below, otherwise glabrous; margins entire, slightly revolute; base rounded; apex obtuse. Fls interpetiolar, usually 1 to each pair of upper lvs; pedicels 3-6 mm long, with short antrorse hairs. Calyx tube 5-6 mm long, 12-nerved; upper part hairy within; base gibbous on posterior side; lobes c. 0.5 mm long, broadly triangular. Petals 6, each 3-4 mm long, broad-elliptic, magenta. Filaments densely hairy. Style 1.2-1.5 mm long at anthesis, ± puberulent. Seed flattened, 1.2-1.5 mm diam., broad-ellipsoid to suborbicular, papillate, keeled on one face.
N.: known from 2 sites only - Tutukaka (Whangarei County) and Auckland University Grounds.
Mexico, Guatemala 1985
A minor escape from cultivation, coastal sites, open roadside shrubbery.
FL Jan-Apr.
This small bushy shrub has been fairly commonly planted in recent years, mainly in warmer parts of the North Id. It seeds freely and can be expected to occur wild elsewhere.
