North Island: Auckland—Summit of Mount Hikurangi, East Cape district, altitude 5000 ft., Petrie and Adams! January.
Evidently a very handsome plant. In habit and foliage it much resembles my M. explanata, but is smaller and stouter, with more copious hairs, and the flowers are altogether different in structure. Mr. Brown, who has compared specimens with the types at Kew, remarks that "it differs from the type of M. saxosa in its larger habit, larger leaves (which are nearly 2 diameters larger than those of M. saxosa and have a different undersurface), and the calyx is also narrower and less erect. It is more like M. Lyallii, but the flowers are more numerous and denser, and the leaves are hairy all over beneath, whilst in M. Lyallii it is only on the midrib that they are hairy beneath."
18. M. saxosa, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 202.—Perennial, small, stout, leafy, very densely hispid with rather long soft white hairs. Flowering stems decumbent at the base, ascending above, 2–3 in. high. Leaves ½–¾ in. long, Imear-spathulate, subacute or apiculate, on broad petioles. Racemes pedunculate, few-flowered; flowers crowded, shortly pedicellate. Calyx nearly ¼ in. long, deeply 5-partite; lobes linear. Corolla funnel-shaped; throat with 5 scales. Anthers shghtly exserted.—Exarrhena saxosa, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 196, so far as the North Island specimens are concerned. E. Colensoi, Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxvii. (1895) 351 (in part).
North Island: Hawke's Bay—Crags at Titiokura, Colenso.
Apparently this has not been gathered since its discovery by Colenso, more than sixty years ago, for the Nelson plant united with it in the Handbook has proved to be distinct. Not having seen specimens, I am unable to do more than to reproduce in its chief features Hooker's original description given in the Flora. Mr. N. E. Brown remarks "that the only species resembling it at Kew are M. Cheesemanii, Petrie, and M. Traversii, Hook, f., from both of which it is quite distinct."
19. M. Monroi, Cheesem. n. sp.—Perennial; more or less hispid with short stiff white hairs. Flowering stems several from the root, slender, decumbent below, erect or ascending above, 2–6 in. high. Radical leaves numerous, ¾–2 in. long, narrow obovate-spathulate or lanceolate-spathulate, obtuse or subacute, narrowed into a rather long slender petiole, hispid with short stiff white hairs on the upper surface, more sparingly so beneath and sometimes glabrous except the midrib; cauline smaller and narrower, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, acute, sessile. Racemes pedunculate, simple or forked, many-flowered. Flowers yellow, ¼–⅓ in. long, shortly pedicelled. Calyx hispid with stiff white hairs, deeply lobed; lobes erect, linear, acute. Corolla funnel-shaped; tube cylindric, rather longer than the calyx, throat with 5 scales; limb spreading, shortly lobed; lobes broad, rounded. Stamens inserted between the corolla-scales; filaments twice the length of the anthers, which usually overtop the corolla-lobes. Ripe fruit not seen.—M. saxosa, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 196 (in part).
