Class
Family
Classification
Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Coprosma talbrockiei L.B.Moore & R.Mason, New Zealand J. Bot. 12: 137 (1974)
Description
Plant glabrous; stems of leafy twigs to 2 mm diameter, only slightly woody, prostrate, branching freely, rooting at some nodes; internodes mostly shorter than leaf length. Leaves 3 at a node; stipular cup deep, bearing only a single minute denticle in each interpetiolar space, sheath lacking; leaf abscission zone obscure and dead leaves commonly remaining attached to rim of cup; lamina c. 5-7 × 1 mm, entire, narrow-elliptic, tapering to long-acuminate tip; midrib only visible vein but reticulation obvious in dead leaves; on proximal nodes lamina often smaller, submembranous, and bract-like. Flower bisexual, solitary, terminal, usually subtended by three unmodified leaves which are very occasionally succeeded by a minute floral bract. Calyx shortly tubular, 0.5-1.5 mm long; lobes 4 (-6), triangular, apiculate, sometimes almost into a hair. Corolla tube 3-4-5 mm long, widening above to diameter of 2.5 mm, cream-coloured; lobes (4-) 6 (-7) (not always uniform in a single flower) slightly incurved, inner surface or border papillose. Stamens (4-) 6 (-7), attached to receptacle; filaments white, elongating as flower ages and finally much exceeding corolla, sometimes of different lengths. Anthers 0.8-1 mm long, dorsifixed, sometimes slightly tailed; connective dark, apiculate. Style if present, very short; stigmas (2-) 3-4 (-5), white, to 9 mm long, filiform, very shortly hairy. Ovary c. 1.5 mm long, often, though probably not invariably, 3-locular. Fruit c. 5 mm in diameter, globose, crowned by hardened calyx lobes, whitish, the surface rough with scurfy scales formed by rather regular fragmentation of epidermis; mesocarp opaque; pyrenes usually 3, c. 2.5 × 1.7 mm.
[Reproduced from Moore & Mason (1974, New Zealand J. Bot. 12: 137-148) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]
Biostatus
Indigenous (Endemic)
Bibliography
Connor, H.E.; Edgar, E. 1987: Name changes in the indigenous New Zealand flora, 1960–1986 and Nomina Nova IV, 1983–1986. New Zealand Journal of Botany 25: 115–170.
de Lange, P.J.; Norton, D.A.; Courtney, S.P.; Heenan, P.B.; Barkla, J.W.; Cameron, E.K.; Hitchmough, R.; Townsend, A.J. 2009: Threatened and uncommon plants of New Zealand (2008 revision). New Zealand Journal of Botany 47: 61–96. [Nationally Endangered]
de Lange, P.J.; Norton, D.A.; Heenan, P.B.; Courtney, S.P.; Molloy, B.P.J.; Ogle, C.C.; Rance, B.D. 2004: Threatened and uncommon plants of New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 42(1): 45–76.
de Lange, P.J.; Rolfe, J.R.; Barkla J.W.; Courtney, S.P.; Champion, P.D.; Perrie, L.R.; Beadel, S.N.; Ford, K.A.; Breitwieser, I.; Schönberger, I.; Hindmarsh-Walls, R.; Heenan, P.B.; Ladley, K. 2018: Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2017. New Zealand Threat Classification Series. No. 22. [Nationally Critical]
de Lange, P.J.; Rolfe, J.R.; Champion, P.D.; Courtney, S.P.; Heenan, P.B.; Barkla, J.W.; Cameron, E.K.; Norton, D.A.; Hitchmough, R.A. 2013: Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2012. New Zealand Threat Classification Series 3. Department of Conservation, Wellington. [Nationally Critical]
Moore, L.B.; Mason, R. 1974: Coprosma talbrockiei sp. nov. and Allied Creeping Species (Rubiaceae). New Zealand Journal of Botany 12: 137–148.
