About
Contact
Links
Electronic Flora of South Australia
Electronic Flora of South Australia
Census of SA Plants, Algae & Fungi
Identification tools
 

Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Asteraceae
Gnaphalium sphaericum

Citation: Willd., Enum. Hort. Berol. 2:868 (1809).

Synonymy: G. japonicum sensu J. Black, Fl. S. Aust. 620 (1929), non Thunb.; G. involucratum sensu Paul G. Wilson in H. Eichler, Suppl. 313 (1965), non Forster f.

Common name: Japanese cudweed.

Description:
Annual herb 5-50 cm high, rarely biennial, lacking stolons; stems usually several from the base, unbranched, erect, cobwebby to white-woolly; basal leaves obovate, narrow at the base, obtuse, soon withering; cauline leaves oblanceolate to spathulate or narrowly elliptic, narrow at the base, obtuse to acute, mucronate, 1-7 cm long, 3-14 mm wide, flat with a distinct mid-vein, green and glabrous to slightly cobwebby above, white- or greenish-tomentose below; margins often undulate, recurved capitula numerous in a dense globose terminal cluster subtended by 5-8 leaf-like bracts far exceeding the capitula.

Smaller clusters occasionally in the axils of the uppermost leaves; capitular involucral bracts in 2-3 unequal series, to 4 mm long, elliptic to linear, acute, glabrous, green near the base, pale-stramineous and scarious above, sometimes tinged purplish; female florets 16-20; corollas filiform; bisexual floret 1.

Achenes fusiform, c. 0.7 mm long, brown; pappus bristles 5-8, free, deciduous in groups, c. 2 mm long, barbellate above.

Published illustration: Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 686.

Distribution:  In various habitats.

  W.Aust.; N.S.W.; Vic.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: most of the year.


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


Disclaimer Copyright Disclaimer Copyright Email Contact:
State Herbarium of South Australia
Government of South Australia Government of South Australia Government of South Australia Department for Environment and Water