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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Asteraceae
Gnaphalium gymnocephalum

Citation: DC., Prod. 6:235 (1838).

Synonymy: G. collinum Labill., Nov. Holl. Pl. Sp. 2:44 (1806), non Salisb.; G. japonicum sensu Paul G. Wilson in H. Eichler, Suppl. 313 (1964), partly, non Thunb.

Common name: Creeping cudweed.

Description:
Perennial herb 10-35 cm high, spreading by stolons to form loose patches; basal leaves forming rosettes, narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate, acute, 4-18 cm long, 4-10 mm wide, flat, with a distinct mid-vein and 2 lateral veins, green and glabrous to subglabrous above, silvery-tomentose below; margins straight.

Flowering stems erect to ascending, unbranched, 10-30 cm long, silvery-tomentose; cauline leaves few, narrowly elliptic, amplexicaul, acute, 1.5-8 cm long, 2-5 mm wide; capitula 10-20 in a dense globose terminal cluster subtended by 1-3 narrowly lanceolate leaf-like bracts, the longest one far exceeding the capitula; smaller clusters sometimes in the axils of the uppermost leaves; capitular involucral bracts in 3 or 4 unequal series, to 5 mm long, broadly ovate to narrowly oblong, acute, glabrous, green near the base, straw-coloured and scarious above, often purple at the junction; female florets 40-60; corollas filiform, c. 2 mm long; bisexual florets 3-6; corollas 2-3 mm long.

Achenes obovoid, c. 0.7 mm long, brown; pappus bristles 7-14, cohering at the base and deciduous in groups, c. 3 mm long, almost smooth.

Distribution:  In forest and scrub, often in moist sites.

  W.Aust.; Qld; N.S.W.; Vic.; Tas.   New Zealand.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: Oct. — Jan.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available


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