Description: Perennial herbs.
Heads predominantly homogamous, discoid. Receptacle ± flat. Involucral bracts in many rows, scarious, spreading when mature; claw of intermediate and inner bracts semi-terete to linear or narrowly oblong, cartilaginous, nerve solitary and extending into the lamina, stereome undivided. Florets bisexual or rarely some outer florets female; corolla narrowly cylindrical, broadened above, lobes short, ovate, nerves extending to base or to apex of lobes; anther tails slender, equal to or exceeding collar, appendage ovate, outwardly concave; style arms slender; style apex truncate, rounded, ovate, triangular or attenuate, strongly papillose.
Achenes cylindrical or oblongoid; pericarp two-veined, either crustaceous, opaque and brown to fawn, or very thin and transparent, smooth, glabrous. Pappus bristles filiform, denticulate, smooth towards base where united in a persistent ring and breaking a short distance above it, or free and persistent, or deciduous as a whole.
Distribution and occurrence: A genus of 17 species endemic to eastern Australia except for two that are also found in south-eastern South Australia of which one extends into Tasmania. 8 species in NSW.
Derived from the Greek words korone a crown, and the diminutive -idion, with reference to the short pappus crown that in the C. oxylepis group of species remains on the achene after the pappus bristles have broken near their base and fallen away.
Text by Based on P.G. Wilson's revision of Coronidium.
Taxon concept: Wilson, P.G. (2008) Coronidium, a new Australian genus in the Gnaphalieae. Nuytsia Vol. 18: 295-329
Taxa not yet included in identification key
Coronidium gunnianum,
Coronidium monticola,
Coronidium rutidolepis
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Medial involucral bracts elliptic or lanceolate, smooth, white to yellow | 2 |
| Medial involucral bracts oblanceolate, apically wrinkled, yellow | Coronidium scorpioides |
| 2 | Medial involucral bracts very narrow-lanceolate, straw-coloured to dusky yellow | Coronidium oxylepis |
| Medial involucral bracts narrow-elliptic, white to pink or yellow
Back to 1 | 3 |
| 3 | Leaves linear | Coronidium waddelliae |
| Leaves ovate to obovate
Back to 2 | 4 |
| 4 | Outer involucral bracts with a prominent semiterete claw | Coronidium boormanii |
| Outer involucral bracts sessile or subsessile and obsured by wool
Back to 3 | 5 |
| 5 | Leaves congested, narrow-elliptic, felty below, margin flat or recurved | Coronidium lindsayanum |
| Leaves scattered, elliptic to broad-elliptic, flat woolly below
Back to 4 | 6 |
| 6 | Leaves eventually glabrous and dull above, heads solitary or in panicles | 7 |
| Leaves more or less woolly above and below; heads solitary on stems
Back to 5 | Coronidium kaputaricum |
| 7 | Leaves elliptic, pinnately veined, indumentum white | Coronidium elatum |
| Leaves ovate to elliptic, 3-nerved from near base, indumentum yellowish grey
Back to 6 | Coronidium telfordii |
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