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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

3. Convolvulus, Linn

3. Convolvulus, Linn.

Herbs or undershrubs, erect or prostrate or climbing. Leaves entire or toothed or lobed. Peduncles axillary, 1- or many-flowered; bracts usually narrow or small. Sepals subequal or the inner narrower. Corolla campanulate; limb plaited, 5-angled or obscurely 5-lobed. Stamens included; filaments filiform, dilated at the base; anthers oblong. Ovary 2-celled, 4-ovuled; style filiform; stigmas 2, distinct, oblong or linear. Capsule globose, 2-celled, 4-valved or splitting irregularly. Seeds glabrous.

A large genus of about 160 species, abundant in most subtropical or temperate countries, less plentiful in the tropics. The single New Zealand species is also found in Australia.

1.C. erubescens, Sims in Bot. Mag. t. 1067.—Perennial; usually more or less silky-pubescent, rarely almost glabrous. Root-stock stout, creeping; stems few or many, slender, prostrate and trailing, variable in length, 2–12 in. long or more. Leaves petiolate, very variable in size and shape; the lower ones with a blade ¼–¾ in. long, oblong-cordate or hastate, obtuse, quite entire or sinuate; in large specimens gradually passing into much narrower acute or acuminate upper ones, with diverging entire or irregularly toothed basal auricles; in small specimens the narrow cauline leaves are often wanting. Peduncles as long as the leaves or nearly so, 1-flowered, with 2 subulate bracts some distance below, the calyx. Sepals broadly oblong, obtuse, silky. Corolla variable in size,⅓–¾ in. diam., white. Capsule ¼–⅓ in. diam., globose, 2-celled. Seeds 4, rough, brownish-black.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 185; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 198; Benth. Fl. Austral. iv. 429.

North Island: Hawke's Bay—Patangata, H. Tryon! Wellington—Palliser Bay, Colenso, Buchanan. South Island: Marlborough—Waihopai River, Munro; Kaikoura Mountains, Buchanan! Canterbury—Port Cooper, Lyall; page 478 Canterbury Plains, Armstrong! Kirk! Mackenzie Plains and Lake Tekapo, T. F. C. Otago—Not uncommon in the central and eastern districts, Buchanan! Petrie! Sea-level to 3000 ft. December–March.

A remarkably variable little plant, closely allied to the common C. arren sis, L., of the Northern Hemisphere.