Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Cockayne says "C. Hookeri, so far as is known, is confined to north-east Otago, where the climate is comparatively dry." He indicates no type.

Large tufted herb with lf-sheaths densely imbricate around stem, stock stout. Lamina ± 20-30-(50) × 4-8 cm., coriac., oblong to spathulate-oblong to broad-lanceolate; upper surface dark green, glab. to thinly floccose; lower surface densely clad in closely appressed ± lustrous soft white to pale buff tomentum, midrib prominent, main veins us. evident; apex acute; margins entire or obscurely toothed, clad in woolly hairs, narrowed to short petiole or directly into coriac. floccose sheath up to 7 × 1 cm. Scape stout, ± 30 cm. long, clad in appressed to spreading silky hairs. Bracts ∞, linear to narrowly spathulate, lower up to ± 12 × 1 cm., including petiole and sheath. Capitula ± 6-10.cm. diam.; phyll. linear-subulate, softly white-woolly without, glab. or nearly so within, up to 2 cm. × 2 mm. Ray-florets ± 25 mm. long; limb narrow, minutely 3-toothed. Disk-florets tubular, somewhat thickened below, up to 8 mm. long. Achenes glab. or very nearly so, narrow-cylindric, ± compressed, grooved, c. 2.5-3 mm. long. Pappus-hairs slender, barbellate, up to c. 8 mm. long.

DIST.: S. Coastal to lower montane grassland and open shrubland north-east Otago from c. lat. 44° 30' to 45° 30'.

Kirk (Stud. Fl. 1899, 285) mistakenly referred this sp. to C. verbascifolia Hook. f. Fl. N.Z. 1, 1853, 121.