Flora of New Zealand Series

smooth catsear

Annual, rarely perennial. Stems ascending to erect, sparingly branched or not branched, glabrous, 4-45-(60) cm tall. Lvs usually all basal, oblanceolate to linear-oblanceolate, simple and shallowly to deeply dentate, or pinnatifid, (0.6)-2.5-10-(15) × (0.1)-0.5-2-(3) cm, glabrous or sometimes with sparse short strigose hairs. Stem bracts few, minute; rarely whorls of rosette lvs formed on stems. Capitula narrowly cylindric. Involucral bracts narrow-oblong with subacute apex, glabrous, green, c. 8 mm long at flowering; inner bracts with broad scarious margin, up to 20 mm long at fruiting. Florets yellow, c. = involucre. Achenes dark brown, scabrid; outer achenes obconic, not beaked, 4-5 mm long; inner achenes fusiform, beaked, up to 8 mm long. Pappus in 2 rows, the outer hairs short, slender, scabrid, the inner up to 15 mm long, stout, plumose.

N.: Northland (Tokerau Beach), Auckland, Waikato, East Cape (Hicks Bay), Wairarapa (Palliser Bay), Wellington (S. Coast); S.: Marlborough, Canterbury, Westland (Saltwater Lagoon), Otago; K., Ch.

Europe, S.W. Asia, N. Africa 1869

Grassland, pasture, dunes, riverbeds, coastal rock, stony terraces, railway ballast, waste land, gardens, roadsides.

FL Oct-Mar-(May) FT (Oct)-Nov-May.