Flora of New Zealand Series

creeping cudweed

Stoloniferous perennial; stems 1-many, decumbent to erect, usually simple, sometimes much-branched, c. 10-50 cm tall. Lvs usually all cauline at flowering, apetiolate, densely white-tomentose on lower surface, glabrous on upper, plane, usually narrow-oblong, oblanceolate or narrow-elliptic, rarely linear, not or slightly cuneate to amplexicaul base, acute, 15-50-(80) × (1)- 2-10 mm. Capitula 1-2 mm diam., (6)-8-numerous in dense ± globular terminal clusters, often smaller axillary clusters below; longest subtending lvs 1-3× diam. of cluster. Involucral bracts elliptic, obtuse to retuse, 3.2-4 mm long; stereome green; lamina pale to dark brown; gap and margins clear or tinged reddish purple. Achenes glabrous, 0.6-0.8 mm long.

N.; S.; St.; Ch.: lowland to subalpine S. of 37°.

Also indigenous to Australia.

Mostly open, wet sites, also forest margins and clearings, cliffs, waste places, shrubland, and grassland.

G. limosum is similar to G. involucratum in the consistent presence of a terminal flowering stem, but is more clearly leafless at the base. It differs from G. involucratum in the more slender habit, the more oblong lvs less narrowed at the base, the smaller capitula and glabrous achenes; it differs from G. sphaericum in the slightly larger capitula, the presence of stolons, the broader bract apices, the glabrous achenes and in having more than 1 ⚥ floret per capitulum. Plants treated by Drury as G. limosum had previously been known in N.Z. as G. collinum.

Plants with narrow (mostly 1-4 mm wide), ± linear lvs, which are more often found on poor soils in shrubland and waste places, rather than in wet sites, probably constitute a distinct entity. However, they are retained in G. limosum here pending further investigation.