Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

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Gamochaeta americana

Common name

Cudweed

Family

Asteraceae

Where found

Disturbed areas and moist sites. Widspread. Few records from the Western Slopes.

Notes

Introduced annual or biennial herb to 0.65 m high. Basal leaves in a rosette, usually withering or withered at flowering and not persisting, 3–12 cm long, 4–20 mm wide, upper surface green and almost hairless, lower surface with a white tomentum, tips blunt to pointed, with a short mucro, margins usually flat, sometimes wavy. Stem leaves alternating up the stems, similar to the basal leaves but smaller and narrower, distinctly somewhat stem clasping. Flower heads 4–4.5 mm long, 1.5–3 mm in diameter. Florets with yellowish tips. Bracts tightly attached to the flower heads green or straw-coloured, sometimes also reddish purple, with translucent tips. Flower heads  forming dense spikes, surrounded by several white-hairy leaflike bracts. Flowering: mostly Dec.–Mar.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Gamochaeta~americana (accessed 22 January, 2021)