Centipeda elatinoides
(Less.) Benth. & Hook. ex O.Hoffm.Prostate annual or perennial; branches to c. 30 cm long, sometimes rooting from lower nodes, more or less glabrous, but with short arachnoid hairs near the growing tip. Leaves obovate or narrowly obovate, (6–)10–20 mm long, 2.5–8 mm wide, entire or shallowly serrate, glabrous, resin-dotted. Capitula biconvex to hemispherical at anthesis, 3–5 mm diam., solitary, shortly pedunculate; involucral bracts obovate with ruminate membranous margins, 1–1.5 mm long; receptacle convex; female florets 40–80, corollas 0.2–0.4 mm long, green or yellow-green; bisexual florets 4–14, corollas 0.5–0.7 mm long, often purplish. Fruiting heads breaking up before stems senesce. Cypselas narrowly obovate, 1.2–2.0 mm long, usually somewhat flattened, 3- or 4-angled in cross-section; thickened ribs on each angle with short ascending to appressed hairs; intervening faces with scattered glandular trichomes and less prominent ribs (sometimes one or two faces lacking a rib), occasionally also with short ascending to appressed hairs; pericarp slightly thickened at and shortly below apex. Flowers mostly Jan.–May.
GleP, VVP, VRiv, MuF, GipP, WaP, CVU, NIS, EGL, EGU, HSF, HNF, MonT, VAlp. Also SA, Qld, NSW, ACT, Tas. Typically growing on seasonally inundated sites, such as creek-beds, margins of rivers, lakes and billabongs, usually on silty to clay soils, sometimes on wet gravels throughout the south and east.
Most Australian specimens of this species have been identified in the past as Centipeda minima, but this species differs from C. minima in several features including the presence of facial ribs on the cypselas and its longer cypselas and florets. Centipeda elatinoides is also often a perennial, whereas C. minima is strictly an annual.
Australian plants closely match New Zealand and Chilean plants of C. elatinoides. Most Australian plants have larger leaves and fruit than Chilean plants, however, Australian plants from higher altitude are virtually indistinguishable from the majority of Chilean plants (Walsh 2001).
SpinningSynonyms
Walsh, N.G. (2001). A revision of Centipeda (Asteraceae). Muelleria 15: 33–64.
