Senecio minimus Poir.
fireweed
Erect annual or short-lived perennial herb. Mid cauline lvs glabrous, or sparsely clothed in short hairs especially on lower surface, apetiolate, narrow-elliptic to narrow-lanceolate, evenly, finely dentate, with dentate, amplexicaul basal lobes, 40-160-(200) × 5-25-(40) mm. Uppermost lvs smaller and sometimes linear. Supplementary bracts 3-5, 1-2 mm long. Involucral bracts (7)-8-(10), glabrous, 4.5-6.5 mm long. Ray florets 0. Disc yellow, 1-2 mm diam. Achenes subcylindric, only slightly narrowed to and slightly constricted below apex, with 1-2-(3) rows of hairs on ribs, 1.8-2 mm long.
N.; S.; St.: throughout; C.
Also indigenous to Australia and W. U.S.A..
Waste places, open forest, forest margins and clearings, occasionally in shrubland, swamps and coastal habitats.
FL Oct-Apr.
Allan (1961) treated N.Z. plants as var. heterophylla (Colenso) Allan and var. angustata Allan of Erechtites minima, whereas Belcher (op. cit.) refers all N.Z. material to S. minimus var. minimus. Drury (op. cit.) clearly showed that Allan's var. angustata cannot be satisfactorily separated from other N.Z. material, and preferred Belcher's treatment of our plants. S. minimus is distinguished by the regularly toothed lvs (Fig. 30), short bracts, and small ellipsoid achenes. More dissected forms approach S. bisernatus but can be distinguished usually by the sparsely hairy lower lf surface. More upright forms, with more stiffly held, finely toothed lvs, found at least in N. Auckland, need further examination.
