Flora of New Zealand Series

Loosely matted, creeping, stem-rooting herb forming patches up to 0.4 m across, glabrous or rarely the stems with a very few strigillose hairs in lines decurrent from margins of petioles. Lamina of lf broadly elliptic to ovate, (3)-4-11 × (2)-3-8 mm. Floral tube 0.5-1.1 mm deep, sparsely strigillose outside. Petals usually white, rarely pale pink, 2.5-5.3 × 1.5-4 mm. Capsule glabrous, (1.5)-2-4.2 cm long; fruiting pedicel (2.7)-3.5-9-(15) cm long.

N.; S.; St.; Ch.: scattered throughout.

Endemic.

Usually on mossy banks or rocks along rivers and streams, sea level to 1050 m, often in shade.

FL Oct-Jan.

Plants of E. nerteroides sens. strict. were long known in N.Z. as E. pedunculare Cunn.   var. viride Cockayne. Plants treated as E. nerterioides by Allan (1961) are referred by Raven and Raven to E. komarovianum A. Léveillé, and E. angustum (Cheeseman) Raven et Engelhorn.