Flora of New Zealand Series

Cape weed

Annual rosette herb. Stems sprawling, ascending, up to 30 cm long, rarely 0, with subappressed felty or woolly tomentum and sparse coarse dark multicellular hairs above. Lvs lyrate-pinnatifid to 2-pinnatisect, petiolate, (3)-5-30 × 1-5-(10) cm, with broadly ovate to deltoid terminal lobe and 3-5 pairs of lanceolate, oblong, or oblanceolate lateral lobes, green with scattered short hairs above, silvery with appressed felted tomentum beneath; margins toothed; stem lvs amplexicaul. Capitula solitary on erect scapes. Involucre 1-1.5 cm diam. Involucral bracts in 4-5 series, glabrous or sparsely tomentose, greenish; outermost bracts narrowed into a linear terminal appendage; inner bracts oblong, obtuse, usually scarious or dark on margins. Ligules 1.5-2.5 cm long, pale yellow, tinged greenish or purplish beneath. Disc florets dark. Achenes obovoid, weakly flattened with narrow lateral ridges and a weak dorsal ridge, finely wrinkled, dark brown, 2-2.5 mm long, densely covered with long, buff to mauve woolly hairs. Pappus scales brown or purple, scarious, c. 1 mm long.

N.: Northland, Auckland, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, East Cape, Taranaki, Manawatu, Wairarapa, Wellington; S.: Nelson (Cape Foulwind), Marlborough (Kaikoura), Canterbury; K.: Raoul Id.

South Africa 1870

Roadsides, coastal sand, pasture, lawns, waste land.

FL (Aug)-Oct-Dec-(Apr) FT Oct-Apr.

Poisonous (Connor 1977).

A. calendula has also been known in N.Z. as Cryptostemma calendulacea.