Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: "Wet alpine meadow and bogs on Mount Cleughearn, Fiord County, Southland, about 5,000 ft." Type: W, 4087, J. Crosby Smith, Jan. 1914.

Small, prostrate, glab., succulent herb forming loosely matted patches, branches rooting at nodes, ascending at tips. Lvs sessile, 3-4 mm. long and ± 1 mm. diam. at base, obovoid-acuminate, apiculate, succulent, entire. Fls few towards the tips of the branches, subsessile or on pedicels ± = lvs. Calyx 3-5 mm. long, cut c. 1/2 way or less; lobes triangular, apiculate, succulent. Corolla white, 8-13 mm. long; tube up to 10 mm. long, much > calyx; lobes of lower lip up to 2 mm. wide, entire. Anthers brown, margins hairy, awns stout, almost equal. Mature capsule not seen.

DIST.: S. Fiordland: Wilmot Pass, Mt. Cleughearn, Lake Hauroko, Princess Range.

Very little material of this distinct sp. has been collected. Much of the information in the description given above is taken from Simpson (T.R.S.N.Z. 75, 1945, 194) who rediscovered the plant "in abudance and in full flower, on hills near Wilmot Pass" (BD 72748, Mt. Pahiri, Dec. 1943). He notes: "The dried material would exhibit nothing of the succulence of the plant, and the leaves are described [by Petrie loc. cit.] as 'linear-lanceolate, acuminate, sub-membranous'." There is a superficial resemblance to E. disperma but the branches root abundantly as they creep.

Petrie describes the capsule as "about as long as the calyx, obovate, compressed, glabrescent, acute or subacute. Seeds several in each cell; mature not seen."