Flora of New Zealand Series

C. hirsuta L. var. corymbosa Hook. f. Handbk N.Z. Fl. 1864, 12.

Perennial glabrate to pilose slender herb, with rather stout branched stock, stems decumbent to ascending, up to 10 cm. long, very slender, somewhat flexuose. Lvs scattered, few, on slender to filiform petioles up to 3 cm. or more long, simple to trifoliolate, rarely with a further pair of minute pinnules; terminal lflt broad-ovate to suborbicular, cordate to broad-cuneate at base, up to c. 1 cm. × 7·5 mm., shallowly lobed· to entire. Aerial fls solitary to clustered or corymbosely arranged, on slender pedicels c. 3-4 cm. long; sepals oblong, up to 2 mm. long; petals white, obovate, up to c. 3 mm. long, rarely obsolescent, shortly clawed. Siliques 1-2 cm. × 1-1·5 mm.; style hardly 1mm. long. Subterranean cleistogamic fls apetalous, solitary, on recurved peduncles; sepals minute; stamens minute, 1 to 4; siliques conical, c. 3-5 mm. long, curved; seeds 1-6.

DIST.: A., C., M. On moist turfy ground near sea. Schulz (loc. cit., 561) records it from Wellington, T. Kirk; eastern mountains of Otago, 760 m., Petrie.

Some slender forms of N. and S. us. attributed to C. debilis may really belong here.