The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network

Could this be P. orthia? It's within two kilometers of the other site.

This one is growing just above a rock shelf in clay soils, there's not a whole lot else growing around it aside from grass and pampas. Has fine hairs on the younger branchlets but the older branches were smooth. Underside of the leaf was smooth with no hairs.

The flowers had fine hair on them too.

Plant habit from a distance.

Hi Hirere, it certainly looks like it. To be sure you really need to collect a sample and send it to one of the herbaria.

Thanks Mike, will do so in the new year. If is P. orthia there is a decent sized colony of plants. I counted roughly 30+ plants along a 500 - 600m section of coast and I know there is at least two more plants over the hill from this colony, so I'm happy!

This is not Pimelea orthia - which looks like this http://naturewatch.org.nz/observations/1432781 and http://naturewatch.org.nz/observations/2491617. Pimelea orthia has erect branches not arhcing / trailing like your image shows, and a more slender gracile habit. Your image reminds me of P., carnosa or one of the P. prostrata / P. urvilleana complex. As I said a year or more ago accurate determinations of these species requires access to good herbarium material of the plant in question.

My bad. I mistook first photo for an erect branch and didn't realise it was being held erect. Peter is right on prob. P. carnosa or P. prostrata (a close look at whether there are white dots on both leaf surfaces is needed to tell these apart). As Peter says, the erect habit is one of the key characters of P. orthia - but it needs to be applied with caution as plants on more mobile papa sites tend to have longer drooping main branches and a short (but still erect) central stem. Hybrids will also have long lateral branches. For Pimelea ID its best to have a good hand lens and get familiar with the key diagnostic characters - leaf hairs, stomata distribution, leaf shape and growth form.