Description: Perennial herbs with variably woolly branches, produced into slender sparsely bracteate peduncles.
Leaves linear to oblong.
Involucre hemispherical to turbinate; bracts linear or linear-acuminate, scarious, herbaceous or cartilaginous, with a narrow scarious margin; stereome fenestrate; lamina pale brown, scarious, not radiating. Receptacle naked, convex or conical. Florets bisexual or the outer female; corolla tube slender below, narrow turbinate to campanulate above, shortly exceeding the bracts, usually yellow; lobes 5 (3 or 4 in female), smooth within. Anther tails long and firm. Style apex truncate to rounded.
Achene terete or somewhat compressed, 2–4 ribbed, not beaked; pericarp cartilaginous, striate, with scattered paired linear transparent cells among linear translucent cells, smooth ot sparsely glandular and with a few minute unicellular hairs. Pappus bristles linear to filiform, barbellate, persistent.
Distribution and occurrence: Endemic genus of ten species.
Text by Text by L.J. Murray and key modified by P.D. Hind. from Paul G. Wilson in Nuytsia 13(3):595-605 (2001)
Taxon concept: Paul G. Wilson (2001), Nuytsia 13(3):595-605.
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Erect plants, variably cottony or woolly; leaves mostly linear to oblong | 2 |
| Sprawling villous plant; leaves obovate, papery, with sub-sessile globular glands and cottony hairs below | Leiocarpa serpens |
| 2 | Claw of involucral bracts narrowly linear or narrowly oblong in inner bracts, of almost equal length in both inner and outer bracts | 3 |
| Claw of involucral bracts linear to narrowly oblong or narrowly ovate, markedly shorter on outer bracts than on inner bracts
Back to 1 | 4 |
| 3 | Lamina of inner involucral bracts broadly ovate; pappus bristles almost equal to corolla; older branches covered with a dense woolly indumentum that forms a silvery sheen | Leiocarpa leptolepis |
| Lamina of inner involucral bracts slender-attenuate; pappus bristles two-thirds as long as the corolla, older branches cottony or glabrous
Back to 2 | Leiocarpa brevicompta |
| 4 | Involucral bracts glabrous or minutely glandular-puberulous, cartilaginous | Leiocarpa websteri |
| Involucral bracts variably cottony, scarious to herbaceous or cartilaginous. Involucre 5–10 mm high; pappus bristles c. 20 or less
Back to 2 | 5 |
| 5 | Involucral bracts with upper half scarious and wrinkled, pale brown; female florets without pappus | Leiocarpa semicalva |
| Involucral bracts cartilaginous or with a short scarious tip, not wrinkled, pale green; female florets with pappus
Back to 4 | 6 |
| 6 | Involucre turbinate, achene glabrous | Leiocarpa tomentosa |
| Involucre hemispherical; achene very sparsely puberulous
Back to 5 | Leiocarpa panaetioides |
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