Macrolearia chathamica

Detailed description

Small, much-branched tree 6–8 m tall with broad spreading canopy (trees usually broader than tall), trunk erect often sinuously curved, up to 0.3 m d.b.h., near base, clad in stringy bark, bark grey, yellow-grey or dark grey, flaking in long strips that dettach from base. Branches numerous, virgate, erect (often forming a tighting interlocking canopy), (5)–6–(8) mm diameter, terete, brittle, young branches densely invested in white, appressed to patent floccose tomentum; tomentum shedding as branch matures. Leaves alternate, subsessile, coriaceous, arranged in shortly spaced spirals at branch apices; petiole 1.8–3.2 × 6–8 mm, base buttessed (raised as a small collar), otherwise plano-convex, densely covered in white, appressed floccose hairs; lamina 70–100–(120) × 16–20–(30) mm, lanceolate, elliptic, oblong-lanceolate or oblong-ovate, acute, adaxially light to dark green, glossy, initially sparingly furnished with caducous white, appressed floccose hairs along midrib and lamina margins, maturing glabrous, margins serrate in distal ⅔, sometimes for entire length, teeth blunt, in 18–22 or more unequal pairs; apex acute; base attentuate. Inflorescences terminal, subterminal, axillary. Peduncules 50–80–(90) mm long, erect or curved, stout (6–8 mm diameter), terete, white tomentose, bracteate, bracts 3-5 or more, lanceolate, linear-lanceolate to deltoid, entire or toothed, teeth, 3-4 or more, surfaces clad in caducous white, appressed tomentum, otherwise glossy green to dark green. Capitula (50)–60 mm diameter. Involucrellum obconic, involucral bracts imbricate, numerous, up to 10 mm long, narrowly lanceolate, acute, abaxially clad in spreading, cobwebby white hairs, apex acute, glabrous green; ray-florets (60)–80–100, (8)–12–16 × 4–5–(6) mm, glabrous, usually slight decurved toward apex, linear, linear-oblong, oblanceolate, apices acute, subacute to obtuse usually minutely retuse and mucronate, mucro minute; surfaces usually white, sometimes white-tinged lavender, lavender and then fading to white after anthesis, very rarely purple (var. dendyi race); disc-florets (20)–22–26, corolla, aubergine, purple to dark violet (almost black) anthers dark orange yellow, stigma magenta. Cypsela (3.5)–4.0–5.8 mm long, narrowly oblong-obtriangular, narrowly oblong-obovate, compressed, often biconvex, base cuneate, with 9–11 ribs, ribs obscuring surface, otherwise smooth, sparsely to moderately furnished with short, white antrorse hairs, densely glandular, ribs pale orange-yellow to tan. Pappus 3.5–5.5 mm long, pale orange-yellow to pale brown.