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:
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In various habitats.
W.Aust.; N.S.W.; Vic.
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Conservation status:
native
Flowering time: most of the year.
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SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia
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Biology:
No text
Author:
Not yet available
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