''Ourisia spathulata'' is a species of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

in the family

Plantaginaceae Plantaginaceae, the plantain family, is a large, diverse family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales that includes common flowers such as snapdragon and foxglove. It is unrelated to the banana-like fruit also called "plantain." In older cl ...

that is endemic to high-elevation habitats in Southland on the

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Mary Kalin Arroyo Dr. Mary Therese Kalin-Arroyo was born in 1944 in New Zealand. She is currently a professor of biology at the University of Chile. Kalin-Arroyo is notable for revising the indigenous genus ''Ourisia'' and discovering several new species in New ...

described ''O. spathulata'' in 1984. Plants of this species of New Zealand mountain foxglove are

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

, small-leaved herbs that are covered in a mixture of glandular and non-glandular hairs. They have velvety, hairy, crenate, spathulate leaves that are oppositely arranged and tightly packed along the creeping stem. The flowers are single or in pairs in each node, with a zygomorphic calyx and corolla. The corolla is white and the corolla tube is glabrous and yellow inside. It is listed as At Risk - Naturally Uncommon.

Taxonomy

''Ourisia spathulata'' Arroyo is in the plant family

described ''O. confertifolia'' in 1984. The type material was collected by David Given in the Eyre Mountains, Southland, South Island, New Zealand. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

is housed at the Allan Herbarium of

Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research is a New Zealand Crown Research Institute whose focus of research is the environment, biodiversity, and sustainability. History Manaaki Whenua was originally part of the Department of Scientific and Industr ...

. ''Ourisia spathulata'' is morphologically similar to other New Zealand small-leaved species, namely ''O. sessilifolia, O. simpsonii,'' and ''O. confertifolia,'' with which it shares irregular white corollas and having a mixture of glandular and non-glandular hairs on many plant parts. ''O. spathulata'' can be distinguished from ''O. sessilifolia'' by its non-rosette habit (vs. rosette), obovate or spathulate leaves (vs ovate to broadly ovate), very long glandular hairs on the upper side of the leaf (vs. absent or short glandular hairs), hairy leaves on the underside (vs. glabrous), irregular calyces (vs. regular), corolla tube that is yellow and glabrous (hairless) inside (vs. purple and with 1 or 3 lines of hairs inside), and flowers and bracts in pairs only (vs. sometimes in whorls). ''O. spathluata'' can be distinguished from ''O. confertifolia'' by its leaves found along the stem (vs. rosette habit), leaves very densely glandular-hairy with a velvety appearance on the upper side (vs. a silky appearance on the upper side), and usually longer inflorescences ( > 10 cm long vs. < 9 cm long).

Description

''Ourisia spathulata'' plants are

herbs. The stems are creeping, with leaves usually tightly packed and opposite or sometimes forming subrosettes. Leaf petioles are 3.8–21.8 mm long. Leaf blades are 7.6–29.4 mm long by 7.0–20.3 mm wide (length: width ratio 1.0–1.4: 1), spathulate, obovate to very broadly obovate, widest above the middle, with a rounded apex, cuneate base and obscurely and regularly

crenate A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ste ...

edges. Leaves are densely hairy and velvety with a mixture of long glandular and non-glandular hairs on the upper surface, and densely hairy with short to long glandular hairs on the lower surface (rarely with non-glandular hairs also mixed in), and with prominent veins on the lower surface.

Inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

s are erect, densely hairy

raceme A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...

s up to 190 mm long, with a mixture of glandular and non-glandular hairs, and with 1–4 flowering nodes and up to 8 total flowers per raceme. Each flowering node has 1–2 flowers and 2 sessile, sometimes clasping bracts that are oblanceolate to narrowly obovate. The lowest bracts are similar to the leaves, 8.7–14.5 mm long and 3.1–6.1 mm wide, and become smaller toward the apex of the raceme. The flowers are borne on a densely hairy

pedicel Pedicle or pedicel may refer to: Human anatomy *Pedicle of vertebral arch, the segment between the transverse process and the vertebral body, and is often used as a radiographic marker and entry point in vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty procedures ...

that is up to 24 mm long and has a mixture of glandular and non-glandular hairs. The calyx is 6.4–9.1 mm long, irregular, with 3 lobes divided to one-third to two-thirds the length of the calyx and 2 divided to near the base, and densely hairy with a mixture of glandular and non-glandular hairs (or sometimes lacking non-glandular hairs). The corolla is 18.6–23.8 mm long (including the 7.5–13.6 mm long corolla tube), bilabiate, tubular-funnelform, glabrous and white on the outside, and glabrous and yellow on the inside. The corolla lobes are 4.3–11.1 mm long, spreading, and usually obovate. There are 4 stamens up to 7.0 mm long which are

didynamous The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament and an an ...

, with two long stamens included inside the corolla, and 2 short stamens included inside the corolla; a short

staminode In botany, a staminode is an often rudimentary, sterile or abortive stamen, which means that it does not produce pollen.Jackson, Benjamin, Daydon; ''A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Derivation and Accent''; Published by Gerald Duckworth & Co. ...

0.3–0.7 mm long is also present. The style is 4.2–5.3 mm long, included inside the corolla tube or slightly exserted, with an

emarginate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

to rounded stigma. The ovary is 3.2–3.8 mm long and glabrous. Fruits are capsules 4.5–7.1 mm long and 3.3–4.8 mm wide with loculicidal dehiscence and pedicels up to 21.6 mm long. The number of seeds in each capsule is unknown, 0.6–1.0 mm long; the seed coat has not been examined. Ourisia spathulata 177524002

''Ourisia spathulata'' flowers from November to January and fruits from January to March. The chromosome number of ''Ourisia'' ''spathulata'' is 2n=48.

Distribution and habitat

''Ourisia'' ''spathulata'' is a New Zealand mountain foxglove that is endemic to the

. It is found only in northern Southland in high-elevation habitats in herbfields, grasslands or rocky, shaded and often dry habitats from 1200 to 1430 m above sea level in the Thomson, Livingstone, and Eyre Mountains, and on East Dome.

Phylogeny

An individual of ''O. spathulata'' was included in

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

analyses of all species of the genus ''Ourisia'' using standard DNA sequencing markers (two

nuclear ribosomal DNA Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the Atomic nucleus, nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics *Nuclear ...

markers and two chloroplast DNA regions) and morphological data. In all analyses, the sampled individual belonged to the highly supported New Zealand lineage, and in the nuclear ribosomal and combined datasets, it was strongly supported in a clade with two other southern South Island endemic species, '' Ourisia confertifolia'' and '' O. glandulosa''. In another phylogenetic study using amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs), all three sampled individuals formed a highly supported clade that was in turn highly supported as being closely related to ''O. confertifolia'' and ''O. glandulosa''. The three sampled individuals of ''O. confertifolia'' also comprised one of the significant clusters in the Bayesian clustering analysis.

Conservation status

''Ourisia spathulata'' is listed as At Risk - Naturally Uncommon, with the qualifier Range Restricted (RR) in the most recent assessment (2017–2018) of the New Zealand Threatened Classification for plants.

Gallery

File:Ourisia spathulata 177523996.jpeg File:Ourisia spathulata 1536440.jpeg File:Ourisia spathulata 172652276.jpeg

References

External links

*
''Ourisia spathulata'' occurrence data from Australasian Virtual Herbarium
{{Taxonbar, from=Q17745827 spathulata Flora of New Zealand Endangered flora of New Zealand Plants described in 1984