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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
1. Corallospartium, J. B. Armstrong
1. Corallospartium, J. B. Armstrong.
A leafless shrub. Stems and branches stout, cylindric, deeply grooved. Flowers in dense fascicles at the notches of the branchlets. Calyx woolly, campanulate, 5-toothed; teeth about equal. Standard large, broad, reflexed, contracted into a short claw. Wings falcate, oblong, obtuse, auricled towards the base, shorter than the keel. Keel about equalling the standard, incurved, oblong, obtuse. Upper stamen free, the others connate into a sheath. Ovary densely villous; style silky at the base; ovules 2–4. Pod 2-valved, deltoid, rounded and winged at the back, straight in front, shortly beaked, villous; valves thin, faintly reticulated, edges not thickened nor consolidated into a replum. Seed solitary, reniform; radicle with a double flexure.
A genus of a single species, endemic in New Zealand. It is technically separated from Carmichœlia by the 2-valved pod without a persistent replum.
| 1. | C. crassicaule, Armstr. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xiii. (1881) 333.—Stems erect, 1–6 ft. high, ⅓–¾ in. diam., sparingly branched, yellow, stout, erect, cylindrical, with numerous parallel tomentose grooves; branchlets compressed at the tips. Leaves rarely seen on mature plants, when present very fugacious, small, linear-oblong or ovate-oblong; of young plants broadly oblong or almost orbicular, entire or emarginate. Fascicles capitate, densely 8–20-flowered; pedicels short, slender, and with the calyces softly woolly. Flowers ¼–⅓ in. long, cream-coloured. Pod ¼ in. long.—Kirk, Students' Fl. 106. Carmichælia crassicaulis, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 48.
Var. racemosa, Kirk, Students' Fl. 107.—Branchlets narrower, ⅛ in. broad, compressed. Flowers less than ¼ in. long, solitary or in 3–5-flowered racemes, which are solitary or fascicled. Pedicels and calyx not so woolly. South Island: Canterbury—Mount Torlesse, Haast! Lake Lyndon, Enys! T. F. C.; Mount Dobson and other mountains flanking the Mackenzie Plains, T. F. C.; Lake Ohau, Haast. Otago—Lindis Pass, Hector and Buchanan; Naseby and westward to the Dunstan Mountains, Petrie! H. J. Matthews! 1500–4000 ft. Coral-broom. December–January. One of the most remarkable plants in the colony; at once recognised by the robust deeply grooved branchlets, densely fascicled flowers, and woolly calyx. It appears to be confined to arid situations on the eastern slopes of the Southern Alps. |