Celmisia verbascifolia subsp. verbascifolia
Synonyms
Celmisia petiolata Hook. f.; Celmisia brownii Chapman
Family
Asteraceae
Flora category
Vascular – Native
Endemic taxon
Yes
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Structural class
Herbs - Dicotyledonous composites
Chromosome number
2n = 108
Current conservation status
The conservation 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). 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.
2012 | Not Threatened
Previous conservation statuses
2009 | Not Threatened
2004 | Not Threatened
Distribution
Endemic. South Island: from about Amuri Pass south along and west of main divide to Fiordland; Also in scattered localities east of the main divide especially in central Canterbury.
Habitat
A plant of high rainfall areas. In areas of >= 2500 mm rainfall it is commonly found in open herbfield and grassland but on mountains with less precipitation it is almost confined to cool south-facing, constantly moist sites such as shaded rocky slopes and the sides of gorges
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 forming a loose mat of rosettes. Leaf sheaths densely imbricate and compacted into a pseudostem. Leaf lamina up to 300 × 12-70 mm, usually coriaceous 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 or densely yellow-tomentose when young but hairs usually deciduous; lower surface dull, densely covered in a tomentum of cream to buff hairs, veins obscure; 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 about 2/3 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 60 mm diameter. Involucral bracts cream, tomentum, 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
Distinguished from other allied Celmisia –except C. rigida by the large coriaceous to submembranous leaves, whose upper surface is often glabrate but whose leaf margins are consistently fringed with buff coloured hairs. The tomentum of the leaf undersides is distinctly appressed and dull. Celmisia rigida differs by the rigidly coriaceous leaves whose margins are fringed in dark brownish coloured hairs, by the distinct rather than inconspicuous leaf veins and by the leaf undersides which are finely covered in appressed, cream-coloured lustrous hairs. 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
Life cycle
Pappate cypselae are dispersed by wind (Thorsen et al., 2009).
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
Occasionally available from specialist native plant nurseries.
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.
Thorsen, M. J.; Dickinson, K. J. M.; Seddon, P. J. 2009. Seed dispersal systems in the New Zealand flora. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 11: 285-309