Flowering plant. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Flowering plant. Photo: Don Wood, south coast, NSW

Flower head. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Scottsdale Bush Heritage Reserve, near Bredbo, NSW

Flowering plants. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Scottsdale Bush Heritage Reserve, near Bredbo, NSW

Common Name

Japanese Cudweed

Family

Asteraceae

Notes

Annual, occasionally biennial, forb to 50cm tall.  Basal leaves flat, with blunt tips, soon withering. Stem leaves alternating along the stem, 1-15cm long, 3-14mm wide, flat, green or glaucous to slightly hairy above, white or green and hairy below, edges curving down and often wavy, with a straight point.  Flower heads reddish-purple or pale brownish, with 0 petals. Individual flower heads narrow cylindrical, in a dense globular cluster at the end of the stem, subtended by 3-8 leaf-like bracts far longer than the flowers. Smaller clusters occasionally at the bases of the upper leaves.

Description (as Gnaphalium sphaericum) in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 686

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