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''Rhabdothamnus solandri'' is a small shrub of the family
Gesneriaceae Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World (almost all Didymocarpoideae) and the New World (most Gesnerioideae), wi ...
endemic to New Zealand. It is the only plant of the genus ''Rhabdothamnus'', and the only member of Gesneriaceae native to New Zealand. Its common names are New Zealand gloxinia and, in the Māori language, , , and . The species is found throughout the North Island, less commonly in the southern part of the island, and its offshore islands, in a variety of locations such as forests, near streams, or on banks. It grows as a shrub up to 2 metres tall. It has distinctive trumpet-shaped flowers that are modest-sized at 2–2.5, and up to 4, centimetres long. The flowers are usually orange, but sometimes brick-red, yellow, purple or pink, and are longitudinally striped by 12–14, even up to 20, red or dark orange veins. It flowers year-round, peaking between October and February. The flowers are pollinated mainly by the bellbird, tui and stitchbird. The
silvereye The silvereye or wax-eye (''Zosterops lateralis'') is a very small omnivorous passerine bird of the south-west Pacific. In Australia and New Zealand its common name is sometimes white-eye, but this name is more commonly used to refer to all membe ...
, which is a 19th-century immigrant to New Zealand that has not co-evolved with this and other native plants, has a beak too short to pollinate the flowers, but sometimes rips through the sides of the flowers to steal nectar. The local extinction of the bellbird and stitchbird in the upper North Island in around 1870, and the retreat of tui to higher canopy and more nectar-rich exotic flowers, has caused a long-term reduction in the reproduction of the shrub, which requires pollination to produce seeds. However, as the plant is slow-growing and long-lived, its populations persist. Due to
extinction debt In ecology, extinction debt is the future extinction of species due to events in the past. The phrases dead clade walking and survival without recovery express the same idea. Extinction debt occurs because of time delays between impacts on a speci ...
, the future extinction of this shrub is nearly guaranteed.


See also

* ''
Negria ''Negria'' is a plant genus in the family Gesneriaceae. Its only species is ''Negria rhabdothamnoides'', commonly known as the pumpkin tree. It is related to '' Fieldia'' (syn. ''Lenbrassia'') and '' Depanthus''. Description The pumpkin tree ...
''; the species '' Negria rhabdothamnoides'' F.Muell. was initially listed in F.Mueller's collections as ''Rhabdothamnus negriana'', although he did not publish that name.


References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q7320002 Gesnerioideae Monotypic Lamiales genera Endemic flora of New Zealand Gesneriaceae genera