Celmisia verbascifolia subsp. membranacea
Synonyms
Celmisia petiolata var. membranacea Kirk
Family
Asteraceae
Flora category
Vascular – Native
Endemic taxon
Yes
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Structural class
Herbs - Dicotyledonous composites
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
CELVSM
Current conservation status
The threat classification status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2017 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) – more information about this can be found on the NZTCS website This report includes a statistical summary and brief notes on changes since 2012 and replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Authors: By Peter J. de Lange, Jeremy R. Rolfe, John W. Barkla, Shannel P. Courtney, Paul D. Champion, Leon R. Perrie, Sarah M. Beadel, Kerry A. Ford, Ilse Breitwieser, Ines Schönberger, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Peter B. Heenan and Kate Ladley. Please note, threat classifications are often suggested by authors when publications fall between NZTCS assessment periods – a suggested threat classification status has not been assessed by the NZTCS panel.
Source: NZTCS and licensed by DOC for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
2017 | Not Threatened | Qualifiers: DP
Previous conservation statuses
2012 | Not Threatened
2009 | Not Threatened
2004 | Not Threatened
Distribution
Endemic. South Island: Brunner Range; Victoria Range; Spenser Mountains; along main divide south to about Amuri Pass.
Habitat
Alpine. In rocky herbfield and shaded bluffs.
Features
Woody-based herb with short branchlets arising from a multicipital stock, usually just below the soil surface; living leaves in few to numerous rosettes at the tips of branchlets; the whole plant either solitary or forming a loose mat of a few rosettes. Leaf sheaths densely imbricate and compacted into a pseudostem. Leaf lamina up to 100 × 12-70 mm, submembranous though often flaccidly so, leaves usually at first erect, becoming decumbent with age, elliptic, oblong, or occasionally obovate; upper surface sometimes obscurely sulcate, concolorous, pale to mid-green glabrate above when mature except on margin; lower surface dull, thinly covered in cream-coloured tomentum, veins obscure; tip acute; margins entire, flat, with a very narrow rim of hairs slightly darker than those of lower surface; base rounded to truncate; petiole up to and occasionally exceeding lamina length, green to purple, clad in floccose, whitish hairs. Scape purple, clad in whitish tomentum, up to 400 mm long; bracts numerous, erect, linear sometimes leaf-like; monocephalous. Capitula up to 40 mm diameter. Involucral bracts cream, glabrate, 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.
Similar taxa
Celmisia verbascifolia subsp. membranacea differs from subsp. verbascifolia by the submembranous, rather than coriaceous leaves with rounded to truncate bases, and by the glabrate involucral bracts.
Flowering
November - January
Flower colours
White, Yellow
Fruiting
December - March
Propagation technique
Easily grown from fresh seed but difficult to maintain. Dislikes high humidity. Best in a shaded site planted in a moist free draining soil.
Etymology
celmisia: Apparently named after Kelmis, one of Idaean Dactyls, a group of skilled mythical beings associated with the Mother Goddess Rhea in Greek mythology. Kelmis, whose name means ‘casting’, was a blacksmith and childhood friend of Zeus, son of Rhea and later king of the gods. In Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’, Kelmis is described as offending Zeus who turned him into adamant so he was as hard as a tempered blade
Where To Buy
Not commercially available.
Attribution
Description based on Given (1984)
References and further reading
Given, D.R. 1984: A taxonomic revision of Celmisia subgenus Pelliculatae section Petiolatae (Compositae—Astereae). New Zealand Journal of Botany 22: 139-158.