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Volume III (1980) - Flora of New Zealand Adventive Cyperaceous, Petalous & Spathaceous Monocotyledons
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Watsonia meriana (L.) Mill.

*W. meriana (L.) Miller Gard. Dict. ed. 8, 1768, no. 1.

Fig. 25G

Robust clumps 75-100 cm high. Corm 4-8 cm diam.; tunic of tough parallel fibres. Leaves slightly < stems, 1.5-2.5 cm wide, narrow-ensiform, margins conspicuous, yellowish. Inflorescence simple or branched, ± ½ plant height; spathe-valves appressed to stem, upper half membranous, often red. Flowers 6-10 cm long, 3-5 cm diam., rose-red, salmon-pink, pinkish-cream tinged with green, or white, ± translucent; tube 4-6 cm long only gradually widened above; lobes spreading, ± 2-3 cm long. Capsule ± 2 cm long, very hard, apex flattened. Seeds to 1.5 cm long, flattened, winged.

N. North Auckland; Auckland - Auckland City, Tauranga; Gisborne - Opotiki, Waimate; Taranaki - Oakura; Wellington - near Fielding, Ohau. S. Nelson - Westport. Roadsides and waste land.

(S. Africa)

First record: Allan 1940: 305; an earlier doubtful record exists, Hilgendorf 1926: 237.

First collection: "Makino, A. J. Healy, 27.12.1941, a garden escape establishing on roadsides and in waste places about Feilding" (CHR 35438).

FL. 11-12.

It is possible that Cheeseman' s record of "Watsonia angusta Ker.?" (T.N.Z.I. 15,1883, 293) "escape from gardens (Auckland)" is also W. meriana. W. angusta is now regarded as a synonym of W. fulgens, a sp. very close to W. meriana differing principally in its scarlet flowers.

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