Classification
 Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Celmisia verbascifolia Hook.f., Bot. Antarct. Voy. II. (Fl. Nov.-Zel.) Part I, 121 (1853)
Synonymy:
  • = Celmisia petiolata Hook.f., Handb. New Zealand Fl. 134 (1864)
  • = Celmisia brownii Chapman, Trans. New Zealand Inst. 22: 444 (1890)
Vernacular Name(s):
Purple-stalked daisy
 Description

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 mat of rosettes. Leaf sheaths densely imbricate and compacted into a pseudostem. Leaf lamina (4)-8-19- (30) × (1.2)-2-4-(7) cm, often flaccid, leaves usually at first erect, becoming decumbent with age, elliptic, oblong, or occasionally obovate; upper surface sometimes obscurely sulcate, concolorous, paleto mid-green, often densely yellow-tomentose when young but hairs usually deciduous; lower surface densely covered in a tomentum of cream to buff hairs; tip acute; margins entire, flat, with a very narrow rim of hairs slightly darker than those of lower surface; base obliquely cuneate to rounded, occasionally truncate; petiole short, up to or rarely exceeding lamina length, occasionally longer, green or purple, clad in floccose, whitish hairs. Scape purple, clad in whitish tomentum, up to 40 cm long; bracts numerous, erect, linear sometimes leaf-like; monocephalous. Capitula up to 6 cm diam. Phyllaries in several series, linear-subulate, erect, glabrate to silky tomentose. Ray florets 70-80, ligulate, the limb linear-lanceolate, white. Disc florets c. 130- 170, funneliform, yellow; tube with eglandular, biseriate hairs. Achene fusiform-cylindric, ribbed, 4- 5 mm long, glabrous or with scattered bifid hairs. Pappus unequal, c. 6 mm long, of c. 20-30 bristles.

[Reproduced from Given (1984, New Zealand J. Bot. 22: 139–158) with permission from The Royal Society of New Zealand.]

 Biostatus
Indigenous (Endemic)
Number of subspecific taxa in New Zealand within Celmisia verbascifolia Hook.f.
CategoryNumber
Indigenous (Endemic)3
Total3
 Bibliography
Chapman, F. R. 1890: Description of a New Species of Celmisia. Transactions of the New Zealand Institute 22: 444–445.
Given, D. R. 1984: A taxonomic revision of Celmisia subgenus Pelliculatae section Petiolatae (Compositae -- Astereae). New Zealand Journal of Botany 22: 139–158.
Hooker, J.D. 1852–1853 ("1853"): The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror in the Years 1839–1843, under the command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross. II. Flora Novae-Zelandiae. Part I. Flowering plants. Lovell Reeve, London.
Hooker, J.D. 1864: Handbook of the New Zealand Flora: a systematic description of the native plants of New Zealand and the Chatham, Kermadec's, Lord Auckland's, Campbell's and Macquarie's Islands. Part I. Reeve, London.