Biology:Calocephalus platycephalus

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Short description: Species of flowering plant

Yellow top
Calocephalus platycephalus B.jpg
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Genus: Calocephalus
Species:
C. platycephalus
Binomial name
Calocephalus platycephalus
(F.Muell.) Benth.[1]

Calocephalus platycephalus commonly known as western beauty-heads or yellow top,[2] is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is an upright to sprawling herb with white hairy foliage and yellow ball-shaped flower heads and is endemic to Australia.

Description

Calocephalus platycephalus is a herb with upright to ascending, whitish woolly to hairy branches and about 6–45 cm (2.4–17.7 in) high. The leaves are arranged alternately, linear to lance-shaped, mostly 5–30 mm (0.20–1.18 in) long, 1–2 mm (0.039–0.079 in) wide, more or less smooth to hairy, apex blunt to occasionally ending in a short triangular point in the upper leaves. The flower heads are yellow, broadly rounded to globe-shaped and 17-22 bracts. Flowering occurs mainly from spring to summer and the fruit is a bristly achene 0.5–0.65 mm (0.020–0.026 in) long.[2][3]

Taxonomy and naming

This species was described in 1867 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name Pachysurus platycephalus.[4] In 1867 George Bentham changed the name to Calocephalus platycephalus and the description was published in Flora Australiensis.[5][6]The specific epithet (platycephalus) means "headed".[7]

Distribution and habitat

Western beauty-heads grows in sandy and sometimes semi-salines locations in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.[2]

References

Wikidata ☰ Q15554710 entry