Kunzea ericoides (A.Rich.) Joy Thomps.

kānuka, manuea, manuoea

New Zealand.

As recently defined (de Lange 2014), K. ericoides is uncommon in cultivation.

Northern South Island of New Zealand north of and including the Wairau and Buller River catchments.

• Branchlets often drooping at ends.
• Branchlets hairy, then becoming hairless (see K. robusta).
• Leaves typically bright green.
• Leaves linear, linear-lanceolate, to very narrowly lanceolate, to 25 mm long (see K. linearis).
• Leaf surfaces hairless except for sparse occurrences on margins, lower (abaxial) midrib normally hairless.
• Leaves mostly crowded on short side branches (brachyblasts = spur shoots).

Mostly trees up to 18 m tall, branches often drooping at ends.

Initial bark brown to grey-brown, usually firmly attached, flaking readily with age. Branches slender, tips often drooping. Branchlets appearing hairless, but sparsely covered in very small erect hairs (20× magnification to see).

Leaves alternate, linear to linear-lanceolate to very narrowly lanceolate, ± 4–25 mm long, 0.5–2 mm wide, bright green to yellow-green, same colour on upper and lower surface, hairless except for margins and lower portions of adaxial midrib; leaf surfaces not puckered; margins entire; tips acute; leaf stalks absent.

Flowers borne in compact clusters, sometimes (usually toward the end of the flowering season) extending into elongated clusters up to 60 mm long; flowers stalked, ± 4–8 mm in diam., petals 5, white, orbicular, oil glands not evident when fresh, ± colourless; sepals 5, tips free, persistent; stamens 10–34, white, longer than petals. Main flowering period: late spring to early autumn.

Fruit dry, 5-locular, ± 2–4 mm wide, flat-topped when valves closed, rarely persistent.

Easily distinguished from all other members of New Zealand Kunzea by the almost hairless branchlets sparsely furnished with minute erect hairs. The bright green, finely, linear-lanceolate leaves and smallish flowers with low stamen numbers also help to identify this species.

Kunzea ericoides has a 2018 conservation status of Threatened – Nationally Vulnerable.

Endemic to New Zealand as circumscribed by de Lange (2014), but currently still listed as an accepted name on the Australian Plant Census (APC).

The genus Kunzea also occurs in Australia, where it is represented by more than 50 species of which three (K. ambigua, K. baxteri, K. parvifolia) are cultivated occasionally in gardens in New Zealand; another nine species are recorded as having been included in research trials or as rare garden occurrences.

• Flora of New Zealand Online
• GBIF
• iNaturalist NZ
• NZPCN