Traversia baccharoides
Common names
Traversia
Biostatus
Native – Endemic taxon
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
Simplified description
Bushy spreading shrub to around 1m tall with flaky bark and grooved twigs bearing sticky thick leathery toothed leaves inhabiting upland areas of the northern South Island. Leaves 50-80mm long, vein network sunken into upper leaf surface. Flowers white, small, with some projecting filaments. Seeds small, fluffy.
Flower colours
Red/Pink, White
Detailed description
Small densely to openly branched often somewhat straggly, viscid sticky, resinous, dark green to yellow green shrub up to 1 x 1 m. Trunk and older branches clad in loose, papery pinkish-grey to pale brown bark; bark peeling or flaking readily. Branchlets slender, brittle, clad in persistant leaf base remnants, deeply and longitudinally grooved; young branchlets distinctly resinous and sticky. Emergent leaves and leaf buds viscid sticky. Leaves 50-80 x 15-30 mm, dark glossy green, obovate to rhomboid, obtuse to subacute, cuneately narrowed to decurrent base, coarsely serrated in upper expanded third, subcoriaceous to coriaceous, venation conspicuous. Subfloral leaves smaller otherwise similar to branchlet leaves, though more finely serrate, grading into bracts subtending inflorescences. Inflorescence a lax corymb of 1-12 capitula. Pedicels 2-5 mm long, slender, usually in pairs, bracteolate, extremely viscid. Involucre of 6-8, linear-oblong, obtuse, rigid and coriaceous, viscid involucral bracts up to 6 mm long, margins membranous. Capitula 8 x 10 mm, receptacle alveolate; florets 12-15, perfect, pale pink or white, narrow-tubular to cylindric, campanulate above, with 5 linear lobes up to 2.5 mm long, these spreading to recurved, > pappus hairs; stamens prominent and exserted. Cypsela 2.8-4 mm long, buff to grey nut-brown, narrowly elliptic, with slight waist below pappus at apex, ribs 9-10, broad and flat; resin ducts prominent, rib-like, rounded, translucent, golden. Pappus unequally biseriate, 3.5-5 mm long, minutely barbellate.
Similar taxa
A well marked plant. The glossy dark green to yellow green, extremely viscid sticky somewhat resinous leaves, often straggly shrub habit, deeply grooved branchlets bearing numerous persistent leaf bases, fuchsia-like readily flaking bark and off-pink to white subcorymbosely arranged capitula with prominently exserted stamens readily distinguish this species from other indigenous shrub daisies.
Distribution
Endemic. Northern South Island (Nelson, Marlborough to northern Canterbury)
Habitat
Montane forest to subalpine shrublands (700 - 1400 m a.s.l.). Often found at forest margins on cliff faces, on steep rubble-strewn slopes, amongst boulders or at the bottom of talus slopes in and amongst other low shrubs.
Current conservation status
The conservation status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2022-2023 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) – more information about this can be found on the NZTCS website. This report includes replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Previous assessments can be found here.
- Conservation status of vascular plants in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2023. 2024. Peter J. de Lange, Jane Gosden, Shannel P. Courtney, Alexander J. Fergus, John W. Barkla, Sarah M. Beadel, Paul D. Champion, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Troy Makan and Pascale Michel Department of Conservation. Source: NZTCS and licensed by DOC for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
2023 | Not Threatened
Threats
A naturally uncommon sporadically occurring species
Detailed taxonomy
Genus
Family
Synonyms
Senecio germinatus Kirk
Endemic taxon
Yes
Endemic genus
Yes
Endemic family
No
Ecology
Flowering
December - March
Fruiting
February - June
Propagation technique
Easy from cuttings but rather slow growing. Dislikes humidity
Other information
Plant of the Month
This plant has been featured as a Plant of the Month – see Trilepidea: NZPCN newsletter for March 2016 for the full story.
Etymology
traversia: Named after William Thomas Locke Travers (1819–1903) who was an Irish lawyer, magistrate, politician, explorer, naturalist, photographer. He lived in New Zealand from 1849 onwards and became a fellow of the Linnean Society. Sir Joseph Hooker named the genus after him.
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.
TRABAC
Chromosome number
2n = 60
Previous conservation statuses
The conservation status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2022-2023 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) – more information about this can be found on the NZTCS website. This report includes replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Previous assessments can be found here.
- Conservation status of vascular plants in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2023. 2024. Peter J. de Lange, Jane Gosden, Shannel P. Courtney, Alexander J. Fergus, John W. Barkla, Sarah M. Beadel, Paul D. Champion, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Troy Makan and Pascale Michel Department of Conservation. Source: NZTCS and licensed by DOC for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
2017 | Not Threatened
2012 | At Risk – Declining
2009 | At Risk – Declining | Qualifiers: EF
2004 | Sparse
Referencing and citations
Attribution
Fact sheet prepared by P.J. de Lange for NZPCN (1 June 2013)
NZPCN Fact Sheet citation
Please cite as: de Lange, P.J. (Year at time of access): Traversia baccharoides Fact Sheet (content continuously updated). New Zealand Plant Conservation Network. https://www.nzpcn.org.nz/flora/species/traversia-baccharoides/ (Date website was queried)