Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Euchiton sphaericus
Common name
Common cudweed, Star cudweed
Family
Asteraceae
Where found
Variety of habitats, including forest, woodland, mallee, grassy areas, disturbed ground, floodplains, and coastal sands. Widespread.
Notes
Annual, occasionally biennial, herb to 1 m tall, sometimes sprawling. Stems woolly. Basal leaves soon withering. Stem leaves alternating up the stems, 1-15 cm long, 1-15 mm wide, green or glaucous to slightly hairy above, whitish or green and hairy below, margins curved down and often wavy, tips blunt to pointed with a mucro. Flower heads reddish-purple or pale brownish, 3-4 mm long, 1-1.5 mm in diameter, with 1 floret, 0 petals; in a dense hemispherical to globular cluster about 5-25 mm in diameter of numerous flower heads, subtended by 3-10 leaf-like bracts, the longest usually about twice as long as the diameter of the cluster. Flower cluster at the top of the stem. Smaller clusters occasionally at the base of the upper leaves. Flowers all year.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Euchiton~sphaericus (accessed 22 January, 2021)
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