Coprosma talbrockiei

Detailed 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 3-5 mm long, widening above to diameter of 2.5 mm, cream-coloured; lobes 4-7 (not always uniform in a single flower) slightly incurved, inner surface or border papillose. Stamens 4-7, attached to receptacle; filaments white, elongating as flower ages and finally much exceeding corolla, sometimes of different lengths. Anthers 0.8-1.0 mm long, dorsifixed, sometimes slightly tailed; connective dark, apiculate. Style if present, very short; stigmas 2-5, 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.