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Woody-based herb with short branchlets arising from a sparsely multicipital stock, usually just below the soil surface; living leaves in rosettes at the tips of branchlets; the whole plant forming a mat of rosettes. Leaf sheaths densely imbricate and compacted into a pseudostem. Leaf lamina (12)-18-30- (40) × (4)-4.5-7-(9) cm., coriaceous, at first erect, tending to become decumbent with age, oblanceolate to elliptic; upper surface obscurely sulcate, veins sometimes impressed, concolorous, yellow- to pale green, usually silky hairy when young but becoming glabrous except along margins; lower surface densely covered with a lustrous tomentum of pale buff or creamy hairs, veins obvious; tip acute; margins entire, not recurved, with a rim of whitish to buff hairs; base obliquely cuneate; petiole ¼-1/3-(½) length of lamina, pale or occasionally deep purple, usually with a thin covering of lustrous pale hairs which are floccose towards the base. Scape purplish, covered in pale tomentum, up to 50 cm long; bracts numerous, erect, linear and sometimes leaflike; monocephalous. Capitula up to 10 cm diam. Phyllaries in several series, linear-subulate, erect, densely brown tomentose. Ray florets up to 80, ligulate, the limb linear-lanceolate, white. Disc florets up to 250, funneliform, yellow; tube with eglandular biseriate hairs. Achene fusiform-cylindric, ribbed, c. 5 mm long, glabrous. Pappus unequal, c. 9 mm long, of 35-40 bristles, n = 54.
[Reproduced from Given (1984, New Zealand J. Bot. 22: 139-158) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]