Four new species of Craspedia (Compositae/Asteraceae, Gnaphalieae) from the South Island of New Zealand, all characterised by dark red-purple anthers

Abstract

ABSTRACT In New Zealand, Craspedia (Compositae/Asteraceae, Gnaphalieae) has much more morphological variation than previously recognised, as demonstrated by suggestions of about 50 informally named putative species and varieties. As part of our research towards a revision of New Zealand Craspedia we have focused here on those plants that can be segregated from other New Zealand species of Craspedia by their dark red-purple anthers. We are describing the four species C. argentea, C. diversicolor, C. rugosa, and C. thinicola from the South Island of New Zealand as new to science. They are recognised based on a morphological assessment of scape, rosette leaf, inflorescence, floret, and achene characters following detailed herbarium, cultivation, and field studies. All four species are threatened. Each is known from a single locality only. Craspedia argentea, endemic to Mahaka Katia Scientific Reserve (Pisa Flats) in Central Otago, has rosette leaves with a dense, silvery, appressed to floccose lanate indumentum. Craspedia diversicolor was once more widespread in the Canterbury plains but is now restricted to Wakanui Gully in Canterbury, where only two plants were found recently. The colour of its rosette leaves varies from olive-green to grey, to dark red. Craspedia rugosa, known only from Cameron Fan, near Lake Heron, in Canterbury, can be distinguished from all other species of Craspedia by its rugose, dark-red-mottled rosette leaves. Craspedia thinicola is confined to the stable deflation hollows at Kaitorete Spit, adjoining Banks Peninsula in Canterbury. Its rosette leaves are covered with a dense, appressed, lanate indumentum. When in the open its leaves are appressed to the ground, with the upper rosette leaves strongly recurved. The formal taxonomic treatments for each species are provided, together with illustrations and descriptions of their morphology, distribution, habitat, phenology, etymology, and cytology, as well as an assessment of their conservation status.