ligule spreading, flat or revolute, often long, always white. Discflorets numerous, hermaphrodite, tubular, 5-lobed. Anthers usually sagittate at the base, with short tails. Style-branches flattened, tipped with long or short appendages. Achenes linear, slightly compressed or angled, with 1—3 prominent ribs on each side. Pappus copious, of numerous unequal scabrid bristles.
The genus Celmisia, which is confined to New Zealand, with the exception of one species found in Australia and Tasmania, forms one of the chief ornaments of the montane and alpine flora of the colony, the various species usually composing a large proportion of the vegetation, especially in the South Island, where the mountain slopes and valleys are often whitened for miles from the abundance of their large daisy-like flowers. With few exceptions, the species are exceedingly variable and difficult of discrimination. This is especially the case with C. longifolia, coriacea, discolor, petiolata, and spectabilis, all of which run into forms which are easily distinguishable by the eye, and which to some extent may be permanent, but which it is almost impossible to define in precise language, and which in most cases are connected by numerous intermediates. As the flower-heads are very similar throughout the genus, except in size, the specific characters are almost wholly founded on the vegetative organs. The size, shape, and texture of the leaves, the nature of the tomentum clothing the under-surface, the differences in the leaf-sheaths, the length, stoutness, and indumentum of the scapes, and the peculiarities of the involucral bracts are all made use of. Of course, these are essentially variable characters, and can only be safely employed in combination. But in Celmisia, as in other large genera of the New Zealand flora, the species, such as they are, must be regarded as founded on an aggregation of several small prevalent characters rather than on conspicuous and important differences.
| A. Suffruticose. Stems woody, branched; branches elongated. Leaves imbricated along the branches. | |
| Stems 1–4 ft., procumbent or suberect. Leaves spreading, 1–1½ in., linear, acute; margins flat | 1. C. Walkeri. |
| Stems 1–3 ft., prostrate. Leaves ½–1 in., linear-spathulate, obtuse; margins revolute | 2. C. rupestris. |
| Stems 6–12 in., slender, sparingly branched. Leaves laxly imbricating, spreading or reflexed, ½–¾ in., lanceolate, sparsely clothed with lepidote scales beneath | 3. C. Gibbsii. |
| Stems 2–8 in., sparingly branched. Leaves erect, ¼–½ in. long, linear-oblong, white and cottony beneath | 4. C. ramulosa. |
| Stems 3–12 in., much-branched. Leaves ¼–½ in., linear-subulate, green on both surfaces, glabrous or glandular | 5. C. lateralis. |
| B. Herbaceous, sometimes woody at the base. Branches short. Leaves crowded, usually more or less rosulate. Disc-florets yellow, never purple. | |
| * Leaves more or less toothed or serrate, clothed with white or buff tomentum beneath (glabrate in C. prorepens). | |
| Leaves 6–12 in. × 1½–2½ in., lanceolate, acutely serrate, white beneath. Scape 1–2 ft., with linear bracts | 6. C. holosericea. |
| Leaves 4–8 in. × 1–2 in., obovate-lanceolate, acutely serrate, buff beneath. Scape 6–18 in., with broad leafy bracts | 7. C. Dallii. |
| Leaves 1–5 in. × ½–1 in., obovate-oblong to linear-oblong, serrulate, buff beneath. Scape 2–10 in., with linear bracts | 8. C. hieracifolia. |
| Leaves 1½–3 in. × ½–1 in., linear-oblong to linear-obovate, green on both surfaces, rugose above | 9. C. prorepens. |
