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  4. Epilobium komarovianum

Epilobium komarovianum

Photographer: John Barkla, Licence: <a target='_blank' href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0'>CC BY</a>. <a class='member-message' href='/nzpcn/why-join-nzpcn/' target='_blank'>Members can view a larger version of this image.</a>
Epilobium komarovianum, Catlins.<br>Photographer: John Barkla, Licence: <a target='_blank' href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0'>CC BY</a>. <a class='member-message' href='/nzpcn/why-join-nzpcn/' target='_blank'>Members can view a larger version of this image.</a>
Tarndale, January.<br>Photographer: John Smith-Dodsworth, Licence: <a target='_blank' href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0'>CC BY-NC</a>.
Bostaquet Bay, Kawau, 30 June 2005.<br>Photographer: Mike Wilcox, Licence: All rights reserved.
Long Point, Catlins.<br>Photographer: John Barkla, Date taken: 01/01/2013, Licence: <a target='_blank' href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0'>CC BY</a>. <a class='member-message' href='/nzpcn/why-join-nzpcn/' target='_blank'>Members can view a larger version of this image.</a>
Long Point, Catlins.<br>Photographer: John Barkla, Date taken: 01/01/2013, Licence: <a target='_blank' href='https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0'>CC BY</a>. <a class='member-message' href='/nzpcn/why-join-nzpcn/' target='_blank'>Members can view a larger version of this image.</a>
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Common name

creeping willowherb

Synonyms

Epilobium nummularifolium var, brevipes Hook.f.; Epilobium nummularifolium var. minimum Kirk, Epilobium nerteroides var. minimum (Kirk) Cockayne, Epilobium inornatum Melville, Epilobium inornatum var. brevipes (Hook.f.) Melville

Family

Onagraceae

Authority

Epilobium komarovianum H.Lev

Flora category

Vascular – Native

Endemic taxon

Yes

Endemic genus

No

Endemic family

No

Structural class

Herbs - Dicotyledons other than Composites

NVS code

The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.

EPIKOM

Chromosome number

2n = 36

Current conservation status

  • Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2017

The conservation status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2017 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS). This report includes a statistical summary and brief notes on changes since 2012 and replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Authors: By Peter J. de Lange, Jeremy R. Rolfe, John W. Barkla, Shannel P. Courtney, Paul D. Champion, Leon R. Perrie, Sarah M. Beadel, Kerry A. Ford, Ilse Breitwieser, Ines Schönberger, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Peter B. Heenan and Kate Ladley.

2012 | Not Threatened

Previous conservation statuses

2009 | Not Threatened

2004 | Not Threatened

Distribution

Endemic. New Zealand North, South, Stewart and Chatham islands. Uncommon in the northern half of the North Island. Also, naturalised in Great Britain, Ireland, Europe and the United States.

Habitat

A species of open, flushes, seepages, and places where water seasonally ponds. Also a component of lake shore and coastal turf, and open river beds.

Features

Creeping perennial herb forming mats up to 1 m diameter, these tightly appressed to ground. Plants subglabrous or sparsely furnished with round-tipped, appressed, antrorse (occasionaly admixed with appressed retrorse) eglandular hairs in lines decurrent from the margins of the petioles, on the ovaries, capsules, pedicels, sepals, and sometimes on the adaxial and abaxial leaf surfaces of the foliage near the branch terminals. Flowers arising individually from the leaf axils, the stems continuing to grow and root beyond the point where flowers are produced. Leaves opposite, distant to crowded and imbricate, frequently reflexed, dull reddish-green to coppery, adaxially rugose-impressed, bearing 1-4 lateral veins on each side of the midrib; lamina 2.0-12.0 × 1.5-9.0 mm, usually orbicular, but occasionally oblong or ovate (sometimes with all forms on the same plant), apices subacute to obtuse, base attentuate to obtuse, entire or occasionally with 1-3 remote, weak teeth on each side of leaf; subsessile or with petioles up to 3 mm long. Flowers erect. Ovaries green to red-brown, 2.5-12.0 mm long, subglabrous or sparsely hairy, if hairs present these sometimes denser along value edges; pedicels 1-7(-38) mm long, the flowers falling before full pedicel elongation. Floral tube 0.4-1.0 mm deep, 1.0-1.6 mm diameter, subglabrous or sparsely hairy. Sepals not keeled, glabrous or sparsely hairy, 1.5-2.5 × 6.5-1.0 mm. Petals white, 2-4(-5) × 0.9-2.5(-3.0) mm, notch 0.7-1.2 mm deep. Anthers yellow, 0.35-0.8 × 0.25-0.6 mm, filaments of longer stamens 0.3-1.2 mm long, those of shorter 0.2-0.4 mm, generally both shedding pollen directly on the stigma at or before anthesis. Style white 1.1-1.8(-3.0) mm long; stigma white, clavate or capitate, 0.6-1.1 × 0.5-0.8 mm. Capsule subglabrous or sparsely furnished with hairs, 4-30 mm long, borne on a pedicel 3-93(-135) mm long. Seeds brown, 0.5-0.9(-1.1) × 0.25-0.4 mm, obovoid, smooth; coma 3.0-4.5. mm long, readily detaching.

Similar taxa

A distinctive species that differs from E. brunnescenes, and all other small Epilobium species except E. angustum, by having rugose-impressed (dimpled) adaxial (upper) leaf surfaces. It is often confused with Epilobium angustum as both species have similar reddish or copper-tinged leaves with adaxially rugose-impressure surfaces. Epilobium angustum is distinguished from E. komarovianum by the glandular pubescent pedicels, ovaries, sepals and capsules (those of E. komarovianum are subglabrate to very sparsely eglandular hairy), and the seeds have a well marked cellular rim absent in E. komarovianum. Epilobium komarovianum has also been much confused with E. nummularifolium, a species with smooth rather than rugose-impressed adaxial leaf surfaces; consistently serrulate rather than entire or weakly and sparingly toothed leaves, and yellow-green, rather then red-green or copper-coloured leaves. The capsules of Epilobium nummularifolium are grey-strigulose rather than subglabrate to sparsely hairy.

Flowering

October to March

Flower colours

White

Fruiting

December to May

Life cycle

Minute pappate seeds are wind dispersed (Thorsen et al., 2009).

Propagation technique

Easily grown from rooted pieces and seed. An attractive species that has proved popular in cultivation overseas. This species can, in suitable situations self-establish and has the potential to be a troublesome weed - as has proved the case in the U.K., Ireland, Europe and the United States of America (Raven & Raven 1976).

Etymology

epilobium: From the Greek epi- ‘upon’ and lobos ‘a pod’, the flowers appearing to be growing on the seed pod.

komarovianum: After Kormarov

Attribution

Fact sheet prepared for NZPCN by P.J. de Lange (30 December 2019). Description adapted from Raven & Raven (1976).

References and further reading

Raven, P.H.; Raven, T.E. 1976: The genus Epilobium in Australasia. New Zealand DSIR Bulletin 216. Wellington, Government Printer.

NZPCN Fact Sheet citation

Please cite as: de Lange, P.J. (Year at time of access): Epilobium komarovianum Fact Sheet (content continuously updated). New Zealand Plant Conservation Network. https://www.nzpcn.org.nz/flora/species/epilobium-komarovianum/ (Date website was queried)

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