Senecio sterquilinus

Detailed description

Annual to short-lived perennial, subsucculent, fleshy to succulent herb, forming densely branched, somewhat sprawling plants up to 0.6 × 0.6 m. Stem base woody, purple-red or purple, glabrous, rest of stem purple, purple-green or green, sparsely covered with cobwebby hairs. Leaves fleshy, subsucculent to succulent, sparsely to moderately cobweb-hairy, especially on the undersides, often more densely so on emergent leaves, becoming glabrate to glabrous, cuneately narrowed to seed, amplexicaul, 30–200 × 10–80 mm, dark green and glossy above, paler green or purple-green below, elliptic to ovate or rhomboid, usually pinnately lobed to pinnatisect with very broad pinnately lobed or deeply toothed segments, rarely crenate to entire. Uppermost leaves similar but smaller, usually less divided, base shortly and broadly cuneate, amplexicaul. Supplementary bracts and calycular bracteoles 9–30, 1.5–8 mm long. Involucral bracts 13–21, glabrescent to glabrous, 6–12 mm long. Ray florets 13–28; ligules dark yellow, closely spaced or overlapping, 3–10 mm long. Disc yellow 10–25 mm diameter. Cypsela 2.5–3.0 mm long, dark brown, dark purple-brown to black-brown, narrowly oblong to narrowly oblong-elliptic, scarcely narrowed at apex, base cuneate; ribs broad and rounded; grooves narrow to u-shaped; hairs retrorse in 4–10 rows filling grooves, often obscuring ribs as well. Pappus 5–6 mm long, white, caducous.