Flora of New Zealand Series

Stolons slender, with numerous long simple eglandular hairs and numerous stellate hairs. Rosette lvs green, oblanceolate to obovate, sessile or shortly petiolate, entire or obscurely dentate, 4-12 × 1.5-3 cm, subacute and often apiculate, cuneate at base; upper surface with numerous simple hairs 3-5 mm long; lower surface with fine eglandular hairs 1-2 mm long and numerous stellate hairs. Stem lf usually 1, small. Flowering stems erect, (5)-15-30-(50) cm tall, with numerous spreading simple eglandular hairs 3-6 mm long throughout, few to numerous short glandular hairs above, and stellate hairs numerous below and dense above. Peduncles > 3 cm long at flowering. Capitula 1-2 per stem; involucre (7)-8-11 mm long; bracts with dense simple eglandular hairs, few to numerous glandular hairs, and dense stellate hairs. Florets orange, purple when dry, not striped on outer face, c. 2× length of involucre. Achenes dark, c. 2 × 0.5 mm. Pappus sordid, up to 7 mm long.

N.: Taranaki (Mt Egmont), Wellington City; S.: Marlborough (Pelorous Sound), Canterbury, Westland (Otira), Otago (Oamaru, Queenstown).

C. Europe, N.W. Russia, but possibly arose spontaneously in N.Z. 1988

Gardens, waste land, roadsides, grassland, forest and scrub.

H. × stoloniflorum is the hybrid between H. aurantiacum and H. pilosella and perpetuates itself apomictically. It is intermediate between its 2 parents. It differs from H. aurantiacum in its larger capitula, usually solitary or paired on long peduncles, and in having more stellate hairs. It differs from H. pilosella in its orange ligules (purple when dry), often paired capitula, and sparser stellate hairs. Numerous records of H. aurantiacum in N.Z. are likely to refer to H. × stoloniflorum.