Flora of New Zealand Series

snow-in-summer

Perennial, with caespitose rosette and prostrate non-flowering axillary branches, densely white-tomentose in all aerial vegetative parts. Flowering stems erect, 10-40 cm tall. Lvs lanceolate to linear, narrowed to base, 20-40-(50) × (2)-5-10 mm. Infl. lax; pedicels > sepals, densely tomentose. Bracts broad-oblong, with scarious margins, tomentose beneath and on margin. Sepals broad-oblong, with scarious margins, tomentose beneath, 4-7-(8) mm long. Petals c. 2× length of sepals. Styles (2.5)-3-4 mm long. Capsule cylindric, 2× length of calyx. Seeds c. 2 mm long, tuberculate.

N.: Rotorua (Rainbow Mt), Wairarapa, Wellington; S.: Otago, Canterbury.

Italy and Sicily 1958

Tussock grassland, railway reserve, waste land, roadsides, cliffs, garden escape.

FL Nov-Jan FT Jan-Mar.

Snow-in-summer is easily distinguished from other Cerastium spp. in N.Z. by its silvery woolly tomentum.