North Island: Var. frondosum: Banks and Solander; Three Kings Island, Little Barrier Island, Cuvier Island, T. F. C. Var. acutidentatum: Shaded and rocky places near the sea; once plentiful, but now fast becoming scarce. South Island: Queen Charlotte Sound, Banks and Solander! Nelson Harbour, Kirk! Banks Peninsula, Armstrong; Oamaru, Port Chalmers, Catlin's River, Petrie! Stewart Island: Kirk. Auckland Islands: Bolton, Kirk! Chatham Islands: H. H. Travers, Cox! Nau. November–March.
Best known as "Cook's scurvy-grass." The entire plant has a heavy disagreeable smell and hot biting taste. It was originally discovered by Banks and Solander during Cook's first voyage, and at that time must have been abundant, for Dr. Solander speaks of it as "copiose in littoribus marinis," and Cook states that boat-loads of it were collected and used as an antiscorbutic by his crew. It is now quite extinct in several of the localities he visited, and is fast becoming rare in others. Its disappearance is due to cattle and sheep, which greedily eat it down in any locality they can reach. The figure in the unpublished Banksian plates represents var. frondosum; but the specimens in the set of Banks and Solander's plants presented to the colony by the Trustees of the British Museum all belong to var. acutidentatum.
2. L. Banksii, T. Kirk, Students' Fl. 35.—Perfectly glabrous. Stems slender, flexuous, branched, suberect, 12–18 in. long. Leaves 1–2 in., distant, oblong- or linear-spathulate, sharply serrate or toothed above, below gradually narrowed into a short petiole or almost sessile. Racemes terminal. Flowers small. Stamens 4. Pods ovate, cordate at the base, slightly winged, broadly notched above; style equal to or slightly exceeding the notch.—L. oleraceum, A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 310, t. 35 (non Forst.).
South Island: Queen Charlotte Sound and Astrolabe Harbour, A. Richard; Pelorus Sound, J. Rutland! Kenepuru, J. Macmahon.
Mr. Kirk appears to have founded this species on A. Richard's plate, quoted above, and on a single specimen collected by Mr. Rutland in Pelorus Sound. Judging from this scanty material, there appears to be little to separate it from L. oleraceum var. acutidentatum, except the slightly winged pod notched at the summit. But some of Mr. Petrie's Otago specimens of L. oleraceum show a minute notch, as also do those collected by Mr. Cox on the Chatham Islands. I much fear that the species is of doubtful validity.
3. L. obtusatum, T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxiv. (1892) 423.—Stems leafy, branched, prostrate or suberect, 6–12 in. long. Lower leaves on broad flat petioles, sometimes 2 in. long; blade 1–2 in., oblong or oblong-spathulate, gradually narrowed into the petiole, obtuse, coarsely crenate or serrate. Cauline leaves sessile or nearly so, obovate or oblong-spathulate. Racemes numerous, terminating small leafy branches. Flowers small, white. Stamens 4. Fruiting pedicels slender, 15 in. long. Pods broadly ovate, slightly winged above, with a broad shallow notch; style short, stout, about equalling the notch.—Kirk. Students' Fl. 35.
