Flora of New Zealand Series

cotton fireweed

Erect annual to short-lived perennial herb. Mid cauline lvs sparsely to densely white-lanate and usually green-grey on upper surface, moderately to densely white-lanate on lower surface, apetiolate, linear, entire or sometimes remotely denticulate, revolute, not amplexicaul, without lobes or with 1 narrow lobe at base, (25)-40-120-(180) × 1.5-6-(12) mm. Uppermost lvs smaller, entire. Supplementary bracts 3-5-(6), 1-1.5 mm long. Involucral bracts (8)-12-13, glabrous or sparsely lanate toward base, (5.5)-6-9 mm long. Ray florets 0. Disc yellow, c. 2 mm diam. Achenes subcylindric, narrowed to and constricted below apex, usually with 2-3 rows of hairs in narrow grooves between broad ribs, rarely almost glabrous, (2.2)-2.5-3.5 mm long.

N.; S.: throughout, especially common in E. South Id.

Also indigenous to Australia and Indonesia.

Waste places, riverbeds and other stony places, cliffs and rock outcrops, also occasional in shrubland and grassland, sea level to 1000 m.

FL Jan-Dec.

Cotton fireweed is easily distinguished by the narrow, lanate lvs (Fig. 30) and the long involucral bracts. Basal lvs may be broader and quite flat, but the sp. may still be distinguished by the lanate lower surface and the entire or remotely denticulate margin. Drury (op. cit.) retained within S. quadridentatus only those plants treated by Allan (1961) as the type var. of Erechtites quadridentata and referred plants treated as var. lanceola Kirk to S. dunedinensis and those treated as var. traversii Allan to S. glomeratus.