Common name: New Zealand Willowherb
Scientific name: Epilobium brunnescens
Genus: Epilobium 柳葉菜屬
Family: Onagraceae 柳葉菜科, willowherb or evening primrose family
Origin: Neophyte (established after 1500 AD). It is a native of New Zealand. It was first recorded as a garden weed in 1904 in Edinburgh.
Date: 23rd July & 13th Aug (2nd location)
[078] Flowering plants in the rock crevices.
[051] Prostrate, creeping along a wet vertical boulder. Matted 纏結成塊的, creeping herb forming patches up to 2 m across. More or less glabrous perennial, can grow up to 20 cm, rooting at nodes.
[2050] A lot of very long flower stalks.
[053] Many short flower stalks could be seen in this plant.
[043_1] Leaves 3-7mm, orbicular, more or less entire, smooth above. (Lamina of leaf narrowly ovate to broadly ovate or broadly elliptic, 0.15–1.3 × 0.15–1.2 cm.)
[042_1] Stems with well-marked lines of strigillose hairs running down from margins of petioles, very rarely glabrous. Note where the flower stalk arises.
[042_2] Photo cropped above, showing the strigillose hairs 微硬伏毛 along the stem.
[046_1] Plant with a flower stalk (with a flower bud) just protruded.
[045] Flowers solitary, erect, attached by long, slender flower stalks.
[039]
[039_1] Photo cropped above. Note where the flower stalk arises from the leaf axil.
[049_1] The flower bud.
[037_1] Floral tube 0.6–1.6 mm deep, glabrate 隨年齡增長而變為無毛的 or hairy. Sepals are narrow.
[036_1] Flower still not open in the morning.
13th Aug (2nd location) [001]
[2075_1] It bloom finally in another locatation in the afternoon. Petals white, (2.3)–3.2–7 × 1.8–5 mm, notched, crossed by a few greyish veins.
[2076_1] Flower 3-4 mm across. (Flowers are around 8 mm across.)
13th Aug (2nd location) [001_1]
[2076_2] The eight stamens (1-4: four shorter stamens of inner whorl; 5-8: four longer stamens of outer whorl) have short white filaments and pale yellow anthers. The stigma is club-shaped, above a pinkish style. Sepals are narrow, their tips just visible from above in the gaps between the petals.
Capsule glabrate or sparsely hairy along lines of dehiscence, 1.5–6.1 cm long; fruiting pedicel (1)–3.5–8–(12) cm long (not seen at this moment).
13th Aug (2nd location) [010] Capsule 12-60 mm long, borne on a glabrous pedicel (16-)35-80(-120) mm long.
13th Aug (2nd location) [009] Split opening now to release the seeds.
13th Aug (2nd location) [013_1]
13th Aug (2nd location) [009_1] Seeds brown, 0.75-1.2 × 0.2-0.4 mm, obovoid, minutely papillose; coma 種纓* 4-7 mm long, readily detaching or persistent.
(Remarks*: A coma 種纓 grows directly from the seed coat or the surface of the seed itself. A pappus 冠毛 is a modified calyx (the outer whorl of a flower), meaning it originates from the fruit structure (specifically a cypsela) 菊果, 蓮萼瘦果 rather than the seed.)