Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Astelia alpina var. novae-hollandiae
Common name
Pineapple Grass, Silver Astelia
Family
Asteliaceae
Where found
Bogs and wet sites in alpine herb fields. Kosciuszko National Park.
Notes
Perennial herb to 0.3 m tall, mat-forming. Fruit fleshy. Leaves and flower staks covered with white-silvery scales. Leaves basal, in a dense rosette, 5–17 cm long, 5–30 mm wide, upper surface green to grey-green, lower surface shiny grey-green to silvery white, tips pointed. Male and female flowers on different plants. Flowers with 6 pale greenish yellow to white 'petals', each 2–4 mm long in male flowers, 4–6 mm long in female flowers. Male branched cluster protruding above the leaves, 10–50-flowered, 30–100 mm long. Female flowers in a contracted, few-flowered, branched cluster 10–25 mm long, hidden among the leaves. Flowering: late spring to summer. Fruit yellow becoming red.
Finer and less robust than Astelia psychrocharis.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Astelia~alpina (accessed 4 January, 2021)
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