Okay folks, How about increasing your vocabulary today? Endemic: only found growing naturally in the place mentioned Tomentum: (adj. tomentose) a dense covering of soft, matted hairs Stellate: studded with stars Subtending: extending under so as to embrace or enfold Phyllaries: the small bracts around the outside of a daisy head Bract: a small leaf-like structure, sometimes scale-like Scarious: thin, papery or horny, dry, non-green Pappus: the ring of hairs or scales which make up the parachute on daisy seeds Pappus bristle: one hair of such a structure Now read this: Bedfordia linearis --- Shrub or small tree, endemic to Tasmania, with slender trunk and thin spreading branches, bark grey, upper twigs covered with white tomentum. Leaves alternate, narrow-linear to 9 cm/4 inches long, margins revolute under surfaces white with stellate hairs. Flower heads clear golden yellow, white stalked, one or two in each axil of many leaves near the ends of branches making a showy mass but flowers much shorter than the subtending leaves. Daisy-type head with all florets tubular, head 6 mm/quarter inch across. Phyllaries green with white felted hairs, inner ones with shining scarious margins. Pappus bristles long white. Flowering December till January. Widespread in wet eucalypt forests and on rocky hillsides. All very well, except that it flowered in November and is in neither a wet eucalypt forest nor a rocky hillside. Instead, by itself in an open grassy area of sandy soil. Isn't it amazing what can be learned from one little shrub?
Posted by Peter Adams at 10:48 AM. Filed under: Flora •
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