Plantago australis Lam.
swamp plantain
Hairy perennial herb with short stout caudex and numerous adventitious roots. Lvs all radical, few to many in the rosette; petiole usually 1-20 cm long, often purple, sometimes very short and ill-defined with woolly tuft at base. Lamina c. 2.5-30 × 7-8 cm, lanceolate, or obovate to broad-elliptic, hairy, especially beneath on the raised 5 or 7 main veins, entire or remotely dentate; base attenuate; apex obtuse. Scape c. 5-60 cm long, ± terete, densely hairy in upper part. Spike generally > 10 cm long at maturity, narrow-cylindric. Bracts usually slightly < sepals, ciliate, otherwise very similar to sepals. Sepals 2-3 mm long, broad-ovate, scarious except for central green or purple band, usually glabrous except for ciliate keel. Corolla tube = calyx; lobes 2.5-3 mm long, ovate, mostly soon curling involutely and forming a prominent, acute, erect, cone. Stamens glabrous, usually with small anthers and included (cleistogamous fls), sometimes with large, long-exserted anthers (chasmogamous fls). Style hairy, > corolla. Capsule 2.5-3.5 mm long, ovoid or ellipsoid-ovoid, 3-seeded. Seeds 1.8-2.2 mm long, ovoid-ellipsoid or oblong, generally deep olive green, sometimes brownish green or almost black.
N.; S.: from North Cape Peninsula southwards, but usually rare in E. areas; St.
Southern N. America, C. and S. America 1883
Usually in and around swamps, bogs, river banks, lakesides and in moist grassy areas, rarely in drier places such as coastal sands, up to 600 m in the North Id.
FL Nov-Jan.
P. australis was first recorded from the Waikato and by 1940 Allan still only recorded it (as P. hirtella) as occasional in moist places in the northern half of the North Id. Cheeseman, T. F., Trans. Proc. N.Z. Inst. 15: 290 (1883), mistakenly recorded this sp. as P. virginica L., a related sp. with only 2-seeded capsules.
Another large, broad-leaved sp. which has been recorded for N.Z. several times is the Eurasian P. media L., hoary plantain. Allan (1940) stated that it grew occasionally in damp places in both main islands. No specimens have been found and it may have been recorded in error for P. australis. This sp. differs from P. australis in its broader lvs, much shorter spike of fls, and the corolla limb widespreading and not forming an erect cone. In addition sect. Lamprosantha, to which P. media belongs, has 4-(6) ovules and usually 4 seeds.
