Brachyscome kaputarensis P.S.Short APNI* Description: Perennial herb with weakly ascending or erect branches to at least 60 cm long, mature branches glabrous or with mostly scattered, stalked glandular hairs, sometimes glandular hairs common beneath mature flowerheads; eglandular hairs apparently absent.
Leaves basal and cauline, alternate, green or flushed purple; basal and lower-cauline and sometimes mid-cauline leaves mostly spathulate or linear-oblanceolate in outline, 15–55 mm long, 4–14 mm wide, entire or with 1–6 lateral teeth or lobes, upper-cauline leaves all or mostly entire, linear or linear-oblanceolate,4–37 mm long, 0.4–3 mm wide, acute, only rarely with 1 or 2 small lateral teeth or lobes.
Flowerheads c. 5.5–8 mm diam., on scapes exceeding the upper leaves. Bracts 13–19, in a single row, elliptic to narrow-elliptic, obovate to linear-oblanceolate or lanceolate, 2.4–3.3 mm long, thinly herbaceous with hyaline margins with conspicuous stalked glandular hairs. Ray florets 13–20; 6.8–10.3 mm long, veins 4 (5), apically entire or minutely 2 or 3-toothed, upper surface shades of mauve or pink, lower surface straw-coloured. Disc florets 26–32.
Achenes flat, obovate, straight or slightly curved, 2–2.6 mm long, when immature commonly brown but mature fruit often pale green-black, green-brown or greyish or the margins at least partly brownish and the rest of the fruit mostly green-black, green-brown or greyish. Pappus a crown of whitish or very pale yellowish bristles joined at the base; bristles somewhat uneven in length, the longest 0.1–0.54 mm long.
Distribution and occurrence: Confined to north-eastern New South Wales, with most collections from the Nandewar Range (including Mt Kaputar N.P. and Mt Lindsay) but also from the vicinity of Tingha and Emmaville Commonly associated with dry sclerophyll forest with recorded dominant species including Eucalyptus albens Benth., E. crebra and E. macrorhyncha but also recorded as growing on rocky mountain plateau amongst heath.
NSW subdivisions: NT, NWS
Leaves with teeth or lobes are sometimes absent, or at least nearly so, with divided leaves seemingly lost as plants mature.
Text by Louisa Murray
Taxon concept: Short, P.S. (2009) Muelleria (27)1: 10-12 Fig 5.
APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data
***The AVH map option provides a detailed interactive Australia wide distribution map drawn from collections held by all major Australian herbaria participating in the Australian Virtual Herbarium project.
|
