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. |