Brachyscome paludicola
P.S.ShortCommonly stoloniferous or rhizomatous, ascending to erect perennial (rarely annual) herb, branches to c. 60 cm long. Leaves cauline, entire, linear or narrowly elliptic, 2–8.5 cm long, 0.7–5 mm wide, glabrous. Flowering branches glabrous or sometimes with a few, shortly stalked glandular hairs; capitula c. 1–2.5 cm diam. including rays; bracts 12–20, in c. 1 or 2 rows, c. equal, obovate to oblanceolate or somewhat elliptic, 2.3–3.7 mm long, 0.9–2.3 mm wide, mainly herbaceous but with scarious margins which may be purplish, glabrous or with a few glandular hairs; ray florets 17–50, 5.7–9 mm long, white but yellowish on drying, sometimes pinkish on undersurface; disc florets 65–110, yellow. Cypselas obovoid, 1.1–2.6 mm long, 0.5–1.35 mm wide, uniformly brown; lateral faces each with 2 near-marginal ridges, conspicuously tuberculate and with eglandular curved hairs and some glandular hairs; marginal ribs more or less smooth; pappus absent or to c. 0.1 mm high. Flowers mostly Sep.–Jan.
LoM, MuM, Wim, VVP, VRiv, MSB, RobP, MuF, GipP, OtP, Gold, CVU, GGr, DunT, NIS. Also SA, Qld, NSW. Occurs along the Murray River and its tributaries south to near Bendigo, in a belt north of the Grampians and south of Little Desert, on the western outskirts of Melbourne, and at a few scattered localities between Melbourne and the Grampians on inundated clay soils, commonly in Eucalyptus camaldulensis, E. microcarpa or E. largiflorens woodland.
Previously included in Brachyscome basaltica with all Victorian plants included under var. gracilis. Brachyscome basaltica occurs in Queensland and not in Victoria. Brachyscome paludicola is distinguished from B. basaltica in having linear or narrowly elliptic leaves that are narrower (narrowly elliptic, obovate to oblanceolate or lanceolate and 1–14 mm wide in B. basaltica) and in the cypselas being somewhat laterally flattened and usually having distinct longitudinal ridges and margins (swollen and without longitudinal ridges or clear margins in B. basaltica). Brachyscome paludicola also differs from B. basaltica in having a haploid chromosome number of six, not eight (Watanabe et al. 1996; Short 2014).
SpinningShort, P.S. (2014). A taxonomic review of Brachyscome Cass. s.lat. (Asteraceae: Astereae).. Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens 28: 1–219.
Watanabe, K.; Short, P.S.; Denda, T.; Suzuki, Y.; Ito, M.; Yahara, T.; Kosuge, K. (1996). Chromosome number determinations in the Australian Astereae (Asteraceae). Muelleria 9: 197–228.
