Ourisia confertifolia Arroyo

Rhizomatous herb with congested internodes forming compact, isolated rosettes 2-3.5 cm across with 2-6 tiers of viable leaves, anchored by tufts of thick, tabular roots, 1.5-2.5 mm wide produced along the horizontal, underground portion of the stem. Leaves isophyllous, thickly subcoriaceous, light green, only briefly persistent with age; blades reflexed away from axis, broadly spathulate to suborbicular, 0.5-1.3 (0.7)* cm long, 0.2-0.5 (0.5) cm wide, obtuse, attenuate at base, with 3-5 (4) pairs of very shallow notches, upper surface densely clad and concealed for most part by very long, tapering, shaggy, sericeous, eglandular, multicellular hairs to 3 mm long, intermixed with shorter glandular pubescence, lower surface glabrous, often tinged red, 5-8 (6) major veins evident; petioles reddish, short but broad, 0.2-0.3 (0.2) cm long, 0.1-0.3 (0.2) cm wide. Inflorescence stout, somewhat flexuous; peduncle 3.7-4.5 (4.1) cm long in flower, 5.0-7.5 (5.8) cm long in fruit, clothed in erect, multicellular gland-tipped pubescence to c. 1 mm long; peduncle bearing a pair of cauline leaves, and 2-4 obovate-spathulate distinctly concave, minutely 5-8 (6) -crenulate to subentire bracts in pairs, 0.5-1.3 (0.7) cm long, 0.5-0.7 (0.5) cm wide, obtuse to retuse, inserted at 45° to the peduncle, abaxially clad in long, gland-tipped hairs mixed with some eglandular pubescence towards the margin, adaxially very sparsely pubescent on the upper half and with 3 longitudinal veins evident. Flowers 1-3 with one of the uppermost and/or both of the lowermost pairs of bracts sterile; pedicels 0.5-1.5 (1.0) cm long in flower, 1.0-2.0 (1.5) cm in fruit, glandular pubescent, hardly exceeding the subtending bracts; calyx distinctly bilabiate, obtriangular, streaked with purple-blue lines externally, 0.5-0.8 (0.6) cm long, 0.4-0.7 (0.6) cm wide, base acute, evenly clothed with a mixture of long glandular and eglandular pubescence externally, some hairs also on the inside, lobes elliptic to ovate-elliptic, 0.1-0.4 (0.2) cm wide, acute, the 2 anterior lobes cleft to base, the 3 posterior united for ½-2/3 length. Corolla entirely glabrous, to 2 cm wide, white except for the throat flushed yellowish-green below; tube narrow, curved, much shorter than the calyx; corolla lobes ovate to obovate-oblong, briefly emarginate, not angular, the two posterior lobes 0.9—1.1 (1.0) cm long, 0.7-0.8 (0.7) cm wide, somewhat spreading, the three anterior 0.8-1.2 (1.0) cm long, 0.6-0.8 (0.7) cm wide, erect to only mildly spreading; longitudinal axis of the corolla much longer than the transverse axis; style 0.5-0.6 (0.5) cm long, angled at the base, briefly exserted from throat, stigma white; filaments to 8 mm long, anthers purple, 1.0-1.5 cm long. Capsule glabrous, ovoid, to 8 mm long, during development protected by the erect expanded calyx lobes, these remaining persistent dehiscence; seeds minute, brown, reticulate. *Non-hyphenated numbers are average (measurements) or modal (numerical values) values. Hyphenated bracketed numbers indicate ranges.

[Reproduced from Arroyo (1984, New Zealand J. Bot. 22: 447–463) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]