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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
14. Siegesbeckia, Linn
14. Siegesbeckia, Linn.
Glandular-pubescent herbs with opposite leaves. Heads rather small, in leafy panicles, heterogamous, subradiate. Involucre campanulate or hemispherical; bracts few, in about 2 rows, herbaceous, glandular-hispid; the outer spathulate, spreading; inner erect, concave, enclosing the ray-florets. Receptacle small, paleaceous; scales membranous, concave, often enclosing the florets. Ray-florets in 1 series, female, tube short, limb 2–3-fid, Discflorets hermaphrodite, tubular with a campanulate 5-toothed mouth. Anthers entire at the base. Style-branches of the hermaphrodite florets short, flattened, usually obtuse. Achenes obovoid-oblong, not compressed, usually curved. Pappus wanting.
Species probably not more than 2, the one found in New Zealand an almost cosmopolitan weed in warm climates, the other confined to Peru.
| 1. | S. orientalis, Linn. Sp. Plant. 900.—A sparingly branched erect annual 1–3 ft. high, with spreading opposite lower branches, more or less pubescent in all its parts. Leaves 1–4 in. long, triangular-ovate, the upper narrower and oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, cuneate at the base, petiolate, membranous, irregularly toothed or lobed or almost entire. Heads ¼–⅓ in. diam., yellow; outer in-volucral bracts usually longer than the inner, covered with gland-bearing hairs. Florets small, the rays very short. Outer achenes rough.—Benth. Fl. Austral. iii. 535; Kirk, Students' Fl. 317.
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Kermadec Islands, North Island: In various localities as far south as the East Cape, but not common; usually near the coast. Punawaru, January–March. This was treated as a naturalised plant by Hooker, but as it was collected by Banks and Solander during Cook's first voyage its nativity is unquestionable. |