Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Plantago antarctica
Common name
Mountain Plantain
Family
Plantaginaceae
Where found
Mountain and subalpine forest, woodland, and grassland, mostly above 1000 m altitude. Mostly Kosciuszko National Park, the mountains to the north, and ACT. Occasionally elsewhere.
Notes
Perennial herb with a long thick taproot. Flower stalks to 0.2 m high, smooth, hairy. Leaves in a basal rosette, 3–10 cm long, 8–35 mm wide, 3–5-veined, hairy, thick textured, mostly with 3–5 longitudinal veins, margins with a few irregular shallow teeth, tips blunt. Brown hairs in the leaf axils. Flowers tubular, the tube 2–2.5 mm long, with 4 lobes 1.3–1.8 mm long, spreading or turned down. Sepals 2.2–3.5 mm long. Sepal-like bracts just beneath the flowers 1.4–1.7 mm long, with a broad hairless to hairy keel. Flower spike cylindrical, 15–40 mm long, congested.
Possibly intergrades with Plantago varia in the Brindabella Range, ACT
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=Plantago~antarctica (accessed 1 February, 2021)
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