The word 'repens' means creeping, so presumably the plant is either low growing or it produces lots of new stems away from the plant.

'Repens' is Latin, in a species name it means “creeping.”So the plant is spread by underground runners and makes good ground cover.

snap OwdB!

eg Geum repens, a high mountain plant from the Alps.

If you are interested in this sort of thing, I ran across a website that has a list of names and their meaning as well as a huge germination guide, how to build nestboxes for bumblebees and plants to attract them, and a lot more;
http://tomclothier.hort.net/

Don't plant Coprosma repens in this country as ground cover, though - it will not take any frost.