Pygmea Hook.f.

Volume I (1961) - Flora of New Zealand Indigenous Tracheophyta - Psilopsida, Lycopsida, Filicopsida, Gymnospermae, Dicotyledons

PYGMEA Hook. f., 1864

Fls solitary, each subtended by a pair of connate bracts, sessile or sub-sessile in lf-axils near tips of branches. Calyx 5-(6)-lobed. Corolla small, salverform, shortly lobed, or larger, broadly funnelform and deeply lobed; lobes 5-(6). Stamens 2, inserted near throat of corolla, filaments, short, anthers large. Capsule with septum across narrowest diam., deeply 2-lobed, laterally compressed and broadest at tip, turgid below, flattened on anterior and posterior faces, splitting loculicidally and septicidally into 4 valves, included in calyx. Seeds us. many, not strongly flattened. Small densely pulvinate perennial herbs or prostrate rooting shrubs; lvs opp., sessile, shortly connate at base, closely quadrifariously or irregularly imbricate, entire, ± ciliate or hairy. Genus of a few spp. endemic to N.Z. Type sp. (selected by W. R. B. Oliver in Rec. Dom. Mus., Wellington 1, 1944, 231): P. ciliolata Hook. f.

Key

Plant forming dense cushion of tightly compacted branchlets, lvs closely irregularly imbricate; corolla salverform, us. < 5 mm. diam., lobed up to ⅓ way

Plant a prostrate rooting shrub forming patches but not compacted into dense cushion, lvs quadrifariously imbricate; corolla broad-funnelform, (5)-10-15 mm. diam., lobed at least 1/2 way

Lvs marginally ciliate only, surfaces glab. (except occ. at extreme tip)

4. ciliolata

Lvs hairy on upper part of one or both surfaces as well as margins

Hairs slender, lax, tangled, sparsely covering upper part of outer lf-surface, on inner surface us. fewer and often confined to small central patch with marginal hairs us. rather stiffly appressed

3. myosotoides

Hairs few or absent on outer surface, or if numerous then long and stiff or not arranged on surfaces and margins as above

Margins and inner surface of lvs sparsely hispid with coarse stiff hairs; lvs greyish when old, rather loosely imbricated to form soft branchlets

1. pulvinaris

Margins and inner surface of lvs densely clad in softer finer hairs, sts the hairs confined to a thick band across surface leaving upper margins and tip glab.; lvs yellowish when old, us. tightly imbricated to form rather rigid branchlets

2. thomsonii

Lvs not closely appressed, upper surface and tip glab.; calyx very coriac. and rugose, tube and lower portion of lobes us. white-pubescent and ± glandular-hairy; ovary glab.

5. tetragona

Lvs closely appressed, upper surface with patch of long hairs and sts also a tuft at tip; calyx not coriac. or rugose, lobes slender, hispid; ovary hairy at apex

6. armstrongii

The generic description has been enlarged to include, besides the spp. us. placed here, Veronica dasyphylla Kirk (Logania tetragona Hook. f.) and V. uniflora Kirk (L. armstrongii Buchan.) which are excluded from Hebe and Parahebe by the regularly 5-lobed calyx and corolla. The infl., capsule, and in large part the vegetative characters of these two spp. agree very well with Pygmea, but the corolla is differently shaped and much larger, resembling those of Parahebe trifida and P. birleyi.

The cushion-forming spp. with their small salverform fls and hairy lvs are superficially easily confused with Myosotis spp. of similar habit, in particular P. myosotoides resembling M. pulvinaris and P. pulvinaris resembling M. uniflora. Because of their small size and thickness un-mounted specimens readily slide from their folders, and many herbarium collections have become unreliable as records because of the probability of accidental mixing. The exact limits of distribution of several of the spp. are therefore not certainly known. FL. 11-1. FT. 12-2.

Pygmea Hook.f.

Key

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