South Island: Nelson—Limestone rocks on Mount Owen; Mount Arthur, T. F. C. 3500–4500 ft. January.
Habit of M. macrantha, but at once distinguished by the more silky indumentum, colour of the flowers, and particularly by the shape of the corolla, which has a short tube and large deeply divided limb, whereas in M. macrantha the tube is very long and the divisions of the limb comparatively shallow. The filaments are also much longer than in M. macrantha.
22. M. macrantha, Hook. f. & Benth. Gen. Plant. ii. 859.—Perennial; more or less densely clothed with soft spreading or appressed hairs; rootstock stout; flowering stems numerous, ascending, rather stout, leafy, 6–14 in. high. Radical leaves 2–6 in. long, lanceolate-spathulate or oblong-lanceolate, obtuse or subacute, narrowed into rather long broad petioles, both surfaces clothed wuth rather soft appressed hairs; cauline linear-oblong, sessile or the lower alone shortly petioled. Racemes many-flowered, simple or branched, short in the flowering stage but elongating in fruit, densely softly hispid. Flowers large, crowded, ⅔–1 in. long, brownish-orange, deliciously sweet-scented; pedicels very short. Calyx hispid with straight or hooked hairs, 5-lobed f-way down; lobes linear, obtuse or subacute. Corolla funnel-shaped; tube long and slender, twice the length of the calyx, throat with 5 scales; limb with 5 oblong obtuse lobes. Stamens with filaments as long as or rather longer than the anthers; anthers wholly above the level of the scales. Style slender, longer than the corolla. Nutlets linear-oblong, shining, black.—Exarrhena macrantha. Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 195.
Var. pulchra.—Similar in size and habit, but more diffuse and less hispid. Leaves thinner and more membranous, sometimes almost glabrous beneath. Corolla ⅔–¾ in. long; tube much broader, almost campanulate, scales wanting in all the flowers examined. Filaments shorter than the anthers; anthers just reaching the sinus between the corolla-lobes.
South Island: Subalpine localities from Nelson to the south-west of Otago; not uncommon, especially in the central and western portions of the Southern Alps. 2000–5000 ft. December–February.
A remarkably handsome plant. The filaments are never much longer than the anthers, and in var. pulchra are nearly as short as in the typical species of Myosotis, but as they are inserted high up the tube the anthers reach well up the corolla-limb.
2. MYOSOTIDIUM, Hook.
A stout succulent herb, 1–3 ft. high. Radical leaves large, broadly ovate-cordate or almost reniform; cauline sessile. Flowers blue, in dense corymbose cymes. Calyx deeply 5-partite. Corollatube short, throat with 5 protuberances; limb subrotate; lobes 5, spreading, obtuse, imbricate. Stamens 5, affixed to the tube of the corolla; filaments very short; anthers included. Ovary 4-lobed;
