Flora of New Zealand Series

Capitula solitary to several, each on a separate scape, heterogamous, radiate; phyll. in 2-3 series, glab. to glandular-pubescent, margins scarious. Receptacle slightly to strongly convex, sts pitted. Ray-florets pistillate, ligulate, in 1 row, prevailingly white, us. ∞; disk-florets perfect, tubular to subfunnelform, yellow, 5-toothed, us. ∞. Anthers obtuse at base; style-arms of disk-florets papillose, flattened, with lanceolate-triangular unreceptive tips; achenes rounded at tips, not beaked, compressed to ± 4-angled, glab. to glandular-pubescent. Perennial to annual herbs with mostly rosulate lvs. Mature frs are often dark brown, especially with age. Over 50 spp. in Australia, a few in New Guinea; the N.Z. spp. endemic, belonging to subgenus Metabrachycome Davis (Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. 73, 1948, 148) with anther-connective not produced into an appendage. Other spp. have been described from Assam, tropical Africa, Bolivia, but probably do not belong to the genus.

Cassini (Bull. Soc. philom., Paris 1817, 199) spelt the name Brachyscome, but (Dict. Sci. nat. 37, 1825, 491) corrected it to Brachycome.

The N.Z. spp. have been revised by Davis (loc. cit. 74, 1949, 97-106). Three spp. are recognized: B. linearis, B. radicata, B. sinclairii. A full synonymy is given, but no taxonomic vars are accepted. Lectotypes, haptotypes and lectoparatypes are selected. The lectotypes are accepted here.