Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Mount Trovatore. Type: BD 75726, H. H. Allan, 7/2/1928.

Laxly branched subshrub, branches densely clad in imbricate lf-remains; living lvs rosulate, ascending, at tips of branchlets. Lamina thin, flexible, 3-4-(7) × 1-1·5 cm., elliptic- to spathulate-oblong to obovate; upper surface clad in loose greyish to white soft ± deciduous hairs; lower in ± dense soft felted white tomentum, midrib hardly evident; apex obtuse, ± apiculate; margins entire, flat or nearly so, narrowed to thin petiole up to 2 cm. × 5 mm. Sheath submembr., up to 25 × 7 mm., glab. (in some forms with floccose hairs), ribs prominent. Scape slender to rather stout, up to c. 25 cm. long, ribbed, glab. or tomentum variously developed in different forms. Bracts up to 25 mm. long, linear to linear-oblong, apiculate, ± tomentose. Capitula 30-35 mm. diam.; phyll. linear, ± reflexed at apex, scarious, up to ± 12 mm. long, hairy on margins and in apical portion. Ray-florets ∞, c. 15 mm. long, tube narrow; limb narrowly obovate-oblong, veins distinct. Disk-florets tubular, ± 7 mm. long, teeth minute, triangular. Achenes ± 5 mm. long, narrow, compressed-cylindric, ribs clad in short ascending hairs. Pappus-hairs slender, up to 8 mm. long, white, finely barbellate.

DIST.: S. Montane to subalpine grassland, herbfield, open ground from c. lat. 41° to 42° 30'.

A rather polymorphic group of forms is as yet included under this name, separated from C. discolor and C. incana, inter alia, by lf-texture and indumentum.

Martin (loc. cit. 182) says of his var. canescens : "Herba suffruticosa tegeticulas confertas formans. Folia breviora, crassiora, et rigidiora quam typo, viscosa, obtusa; folia vivientia a summis ramorum congregata, supra tomento cinereo in vita, in siccitate evidenter glabrata; infra hebeti albo tomento arcte appresso. Costa media distincta, paene glabra vel glabrata. Scapus ± 15 cm. glabrus vel glabratus. Bractae circ. 10, parce tomentosae, lineares, involucri squamae lineares, glandulosae, recurvae. Capitulum 3-4 cm. diam. Achenium paene glabrum; pappo paulo breviora. South Island: Type locality--Mount St. Arnaud. Type in Herbarium of Plant Research Station, Palmerston North. St. Arnaud Range, Red Hills, and southern end of the Wairau Mountains." The type has not been located.