.jpg)
Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
13. Cyrtostylis, R. Br
13. Cyrtostylis, R. Br.
Small delicate terrestrial herbs. Root of rounded tubers on long fleshy fibres. Leaf solitary, sessile, oblong to orbicular. Flowers few in a terminal raceme, often reduced to one; bracts small. Upper sepal linear or linear-lanceolate, erect or incurved, concave; lateral sepals and petals narrow-linear, spreading or deflexed. Lip horizontally spreading from the base of the column, undivided, oblong, flat, entire; base with 2 calli, produced into raised lines for some distance along the lamina. Column elongated, incurved, winged on each side towards the summit; stigma cup-shaped, placed just under the rostellum. Anther terminal, erect, 2-celled; pollinia 2 in each cell, falcate or lobed.
A genus of 2 closely allied species, one found in New Zealand, the other in Australia.
| 1. | C. oblonga, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 246.—Stems very slender, glabrous, 1–4 in. high. Leaf towards the base of the stem, sessile, spreading, ½–1½ in. long, oblong or oblong-ovate, obtuse or subacute, cordate or rounded at the base, thin and membranous, flat, obscurely 3–5-nerved. Flowers solitary or in a 2–5-flowered raceme, greenish, ⅓ in. diam.; bracts small, ovate-lanceolate. Upper sepal narrow linear-obovate, erect; lateral sepals and petals narrow-linear, acute, spreading or deflexed. Lip as long as the sepals, linear-oblong, obtuse. Column slender, about ⅔ the length of the upper sepal. Pollinia 2 in each anther-cell, oblong-falcate.— Handb. N.Z. Fl. 264.
Var. rotundifolia.—Altogether like the type, but the leaf is orbicular-cordate, ½–1½ in. diam.—C. rotundifolia, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 246; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 264. C. macrophylla, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. l.c. North Island: Not uncommon from the North Cape southwards. South Island: Marlborough—Pelorus Sound, J. Rutland, J. Macmahon! Nelson—Buller Valley, T. F. C. Canterbury—Banks Peninsula, Armstrong; Broken River, J. D. Enys! T. F. C. Sea-level to 2500 ft. August–October. I have been compelled to sink C. rotundifolia as a species. It differs in no respect except in the width of the leaf, and in several localities I have observed, the two forms growing intermixed and gradually passing into each other. |