Stuartina muelleri Sond.
spoon-leaved cudweed
Ascending to erect annual, often short-lived. Stems tomentose, becoming glabrous, much-branched above and below, 1-15 cm long. Basal lvs sparsely to moderately hairy on upper surface, densely tomentose on lower, orbicular to obovate, obtuse and mucronate at apex, cuneate to long petiole ± = or > lamina; cauline lvs similar, smaller, with lamina 2-7-(8) mm diam.; uppermost lvs sometimes spathulate. Capitula c. 1 mm diam., (2)-8-numerous in terminal or axillary clusters ± covered in dense woolly hairs and exceeded by subtending lvs. Outer involucral bracts hairy, c. 1 mm long, acute; inner bracts almost glabrous, 2-3 mm long, with lamina becoming darker and hooked at fruiting, and exposed above woolly hairs of cluster. Achenes minutely papillate, 0.8 mm long.
S.: Picton, Fairhall, Wither Hills and Wairau Bar (Marlborough), Banks Peninsula, Kaitorete Spit, and Harewood (Canterbury).
Australia 1906
Depleted pasture and grassland, stony sites, rock outcrops and waste places.
FL (May)-Aug-Nov.
Spoon-leaved cudweed is locally common. It can be distinguished from superficially similar spp. of the Inuleae by the long-petiolate lvs, and the small hooked capitula (Fig. 29).
