Common Name

Soft Billy-buttons

Family

Asteraceae

Notes

Annual forb to 40cm tall. Basal leaves soon withering. Stem leaves alternating up the stems, more or less stem-clasping, 1-7cm long, 2-10mm wide, flat, somewhat hairy and sticky, with sticky hairy edges and pointed tips. Flower heads yellow, with 0 petals, spherical or oval, single at the ends of the stems, sometimes 2 together or 1-2 smaller ones at the base. Protected NSW.

Differs from Craspedia haplorrhiza in that the hairs on the seeds are yellow.

Differs from Pycnosorus chrysanthus in that the leaves have a single prominent longitudinal vein and from Pycnosorus chrysanthus and Pycnosorus thompsonianus in that the main bract of the partial head has a narrow brown glandular central region and broad dry membranous yellow margins.

Differs from Pycnosorus thompsonianus in that the leaves have few or no fine woolly hairs.

Description and photo (as Craspedia pleiocephala) in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 707

PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Pycnosorus~pleiocephalus