Euphrasia repens Hook.f.
E. umbellata Petrie in T.N.Z.I. 43, 1911, 256.
Type locality: "Bluff Island". Type: K, Lyall. Type of E. umbellata: W, 4851, mouth of Oreti R., J. Crosby Smith.
Slender succulent annual herb us. forming matted patches; stems much and often ± umbellately branched, branches creeping and rooting at nodes or ascending, ± flattened with membr. wings, glab. or with sparse flattened jointed hairs. Lvs sessile and subsheathing at base, 2.5-4-6 × 1-3 mm., oblong- to ovate-cuneate, upper 1/5-⅓ digitately divided into 3-5-(7) subacute to acute linear segs 0·5-2 mm. long, middle seg. us. > lateral segs, membr. when dry, glab. or sparsely white-hairy, rarely with 1-2 setae at tips of segs. Fls us. borne singly, subsessile or on pedicels up to 10 mm. long. Calyx 3-4-(5) mm. long, divided c. 1/2 way; lobes lanceolate-triangular, acute, glab. or occ. setose at tips. Corolla white, (6)-10-13 mm. long; tube slender, up to 9 mm. long, much > calyx; lobes of lower lip up to 2 mm. wide, entire. Anthers yellow to golden brown, glab. or with a few marginal hairs, awns small, almost equal. Capsule < calyx, densely setose at apex; seeds 2 per locule, c. 1·5 mm. long.
DIST.: S., St. Sandy, shingly and boggy places on coasts of Foveaux Strait and adjacent islets.
FL. 1-2.
Petrie distinguished his E. umbellata from E. repens by its larger size, more erect and not rooting habit, and larger, more divided lvs. Though the type specimens and other collections from the Oreti mouth are luxuriant and ascending as he described they bear occ. roots at lower nodes, and the differences between these and dense mats of small-lvd rooting branches from Bluff and Fortrose seem wholly ascribable to habitat. Cheeseman (Man. N.Z. Fl. 1925, 844) treated the two spp. separately but remarked of E. umbellata : "I regard this as nothing more than a large state of E. repens . . .".
