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Woody-based herb with branchlets arising from a multicipital stock, usually close to soil surface; living leaves in large rosettes at the tips of branchlets, the whole plant forming irregular patches of numerous rosettes; leaf sheaths densely imbricate and compacted, forming a pseudo-stem. Leaf lamina (15)- 25-35 × 1.8-3 cm, subcoriaceous or flaccid, older leaves weakly patent, lanceolate to oblong; upper surface finely sulcate, concolorous, dark green, glabrate or with a thin, scurfy greenish pellicle; lower surface densely covered in glistening appressed tomentum, midrib prominent and sometimes purple; tip acute; margins entire, slightly revolute; base more or less gradually narrowed to a purple, ribbed petiole up to 8 cm long. Sheath up to 6 × 2.5 cm, purple (rarely greenish), clad in floccose, white hairs or glabrate. Scape purple, thinly clad in floccose, white hairs, slender, up to 30 cm long; bracts several in upper half, erect, linear; monocephalous. Ray florets c. 40, ligulate, the limb narrow-linear, white. Disc florets c. 50, 6 mm long, funneliform, yellow, tube with long eglandular biseriate hairs. Achene fusiform, grooved, 3-4.5 mm long, glabrous or slightly hairy; hairs short, appressed, bifid. Pappus unequal, c. 6 mm long, of c. 30 barbellate bristles.
[Reproduced from Given (1980, New Zealand J. Bot. 18: 127-140) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]