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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Asteraceae
Gnaphalium spicatum

Citation: Lam., Encycl. 2:757 (1788).

Synonymy: G. purpureum sensu Paul G. Wilson in H. Eichler, Suppl. 314 (1965), non L.

Common name: Spiked cudweed.

Description:
Annual or biennial herb 7-40 cm high, lacking stolons; basal leaves forming rosettes, oblanceolate to spathulate, subamplexicaul, obtuse, 2.5-7 cm long, 8-16 mm wide, green and glabrous to subglabrous with a distinct mid-vein furrow above, white-tomentose below; margins straight to undulate; cauline leaves similar, widely spaced, diminishing in size up the stem, 1-6 cm long, with undulate margins.

Capitula in terminal and subsessile axillary clusters aggregated to form a dense spike-like panicle; capitular involucral bracts in c. 4 unequal series, to 3 mm long, glabrous, greenish below, pale and scarious above, purplish at the junction, the inner ones linear and subacute; female florets 30-50; corollas filiform, purple; bisexual florets 1-4.

Achenes obovoid-cylindric, c. 0.7 mm long, straw-coloured; pappus bristles 12-16, cohering at the base and deciduous as a unit, 2-2.5 mm long.

Published illustration: Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 687.

Distribution:  A weed of disturbed ground, occurring on lawns around Adelaide.

  W.Aust.; N.S.W.; Vic.   Native to South America.

Conservation status: naturalised

Flowering time: most of the year, mainly Dec. — 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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