Flora of New Zealand Series

fireweed

Erect, annual or short-lived perennial herb. Mid cauline lvs usually almost glabrous on both surfaces when mature, sometimes sparsely white-lanate on upper surface and moderately white-lanate on lower, apetiolate, narrow-elliptic or narrowly elliptic-obovate to linear, usually remotely denticulate, rarely entire, usually revolute, not amplexicaul and without lobes at base, 40-100 × 3-9 mm. Uppermost lvs smaller, usually linear and often lanate, especially on lower surface. Supplementary bracts 3-5-(6), 1-2 mm long. Involucral bracts 12-13, glabrous to sparsely lanate, 4.5-5.5 mm long. Ray florets 0. Disc greenish yellow, 2-3 mm diam. Achenes subcylindric, narrowed to and slightly constricted below apex, usually with 2-3 rows of hairs mostly on the ribs, sometimes almost evenly hairy, c. 2.5 mm long.

S.: scattered localities from N. Canterbury to Southland, particularly inland.

Endemic.

Scrubland, grassland and rocky places, up to 800 m.

FL Nov-Feb.

S. dunedinensis is represented in herbaria by very few collections and nowhere appears to be common; it seems probable that at least some plants referred to this sp. are hybrids with S. quadridentatus as one of the parents. Drury (op. cit.) placed S. quadridentatus var. lanceola Kirk tentatively within S. dunedinensis. S. dunedinensis is distinguished from S. quadridentatus by the less hairy lvs, shorter bracts, and the broader lower lvs (Fig. 30). The sp. was treated as Erechtites diversifolia by Allan (1961).