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- = Celmisia praestans Allan, Trans. & Proc. Roy. Soc. New Zealand 76: 589 (1947)
Woody-based herb with short branchlets arising from a multicipital stock, usually just below the soil surface; living leaves in rosettes at the tips of branchlets; the whole plant forming a clump of few to many rosettes. Leaf sheaths densely imbricate and compacted into pseudostem. Leaf lamina (5)- 10-21-(30) × (1.5)-4.5-6.5-(9) cm, coriaceous, at first erect but later decumbent, lanceolate, elliptic, oblong to sometimes oblanceolate; upper surface often sulcate, concolorous, deep green, glabrous or with whitish hairs especially along the midrib; lower surface densely clad with thick femigineous or deep buff tomentum; tip acute, margins entire, rimmed with femigineous hairs; base obliquely cuneate or truncate; petiole usually short, sometimes up to 1/3-2/3 lamina length, purple, often clad in floccose whitish hairs. Scape purple, clad in buff or ferrugineous tomentum, up to 30 cm long; bracts numerous, erect, linear; monocephalous. Capitula up to 6 cm diam. Phyllaries in several series, linear-subulate, erect, clad throughout with brown tomentum. Ray florets c. 75, ligulate, the limb linear-lanceolate, white. Disc florets c. 160, funneliform, yellow; tube with eglandular, biseriate hairs. Achene fusiformcylindric, strongly ribbed, 5 mm long, glabrous. Pappus unequal 6-7 mm long, of c. 30 bristles.
[Reproduced from Given (1984, New Zealand J. Bot. 22: 139–158) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]