Flora of New Zealand Series

"A spreading shrub 2-3 m. high, leafless except when young; branchlets 2 mm. broad, plano-convex, striate, glabrous. Leaves 1·5-2 cm. long, 3-5-foliate, glabrous, with the terminal leaflet somewhat distant; leaflets obcordate, emarginate. Racemes 1 or more, subumbellately 3-(5)-7 flowered; rhachis 6 mm. long, pale green, pilose; pedicels 1 mm. long, sparingly pilose; flowers small, 4 mm. long; calyx 1 mm. long, pale green, with a few hairs, teeth small, triangular, red tipped; standard with purplish bands from base to centre, elsewhere striped, colour changing to violet; keel white, tipped with purple, auricles rounded; wings white, auricles bluntly pointed. Ovary glabrous. Pods dark brown, elliptic oblong, 8 mm. × 4 mm.; beak short, stoutly subulate. Seeds 1-2, red, sparingly spotted or marked with black.

"Habitat: Low coastal forest and forest margins. Type specimens No. 324 ex the author's herbarium, from a plant in cultivation collected at Whakatane by Miss L. B. Moore, in the Herbarium Plant Research Bureau, Wellington."

The type specimen has not been located, and Simpson's description is copied here. He cites various specimens from Mount Manaia to Bay of Plenty, adding: "Specimens from scattered localities differ in more or less degree from the type, and the species, by these inclusions, is compound. The type specimens, however, are comparable with the cotypes of Genista compressa Banks and Sol. in herbaria at the Auckland and Dominion Museums."

Specimens in BD named by Simpson are: 45531 Whangarei Heads (barren); 45529 The Mount, Tauranga (dehisced repla); 45530 Hill overlooking Port Jackson (barren); 45528 Woodhill, Auckland (barren-4 pods in packet). Further study is required to establish the status of C. solandri.