Parahebe catarractae(Scrophulariaceae): intraspecific taxonomy

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Abstract
Seventeen morphological characters (both binary and continuous) were recorded in thirty-five population samples of Parahebe catarractae grown under uniform conditions. Interpopulation variation was shown to be present in all characters by inspection for binary characters and by analysis of variance for continuous characters. For all continuous and most binary characters individually, this variation was not invariably associated with geography. Two multivariate techniques, clustering by the unweighted pair-group method of arithmetic averages and principal component analysis using character correlations, both revealed four groups with allopatric distributions, a classification supported by discriminant analysis. These groups are recognised as P. catarractae ssp. catarractae from Fiordland ssp. diffusa from east and central North Island and Nelson, ssp. lanceolata from Taranaki and Coromandel (and one population in north-west Nelson) and ssp. martinii from Marlborough, the last previously undescribed. Nine plants from different populations, representing all four subspecies of P. catarractae, all had the chromosome number n = 21.