21. SENECIO, Linn.
Herbs, shrubs, or small trees of exceedingly various habit, glabrous or pubescent or more or less woolly or tomentose. Leaves alternate, entire or variously divided. Heads solitary or corymbose or paniculate, heterogamous and radiate or homogamous and discoid. Involucre from cylindrical to hemispherical; bracts in 1 or 2 series, nearly equal, erect, free or connate below, usually with a few much shorter ones at the base. Receptacle flat or convex, naked, pitted or fimbrillate. Florets of the circumference female, ligulate, sometimes sterile or wanting. Disc-florets hermaphrodite, tubular, 5-toothed. Anthers obtuse at the base or minutely tailed. Style-branches of the hermaphrodite florets recurved, their tips truncate or penicillate. Achenes subterete, usually ribbed or striate. Pappus-hairs copious, soft, white, smooth or scabrid or barbellate.
The largest genus of Compositæ, if not of flowering plants generally, probably containing fully 1,000 species. It is found in all parts of the world, stretching from the equator to the limits of phænogamic vegetation in both the arctic and antarctic regions, but is most abundant in temperate and mountainous districts. Few of the species have wide ranges, and many have a very restricted distribution. Of the 30 found in New Zealand, one extends to Australia, the rest are all endemic. The herbaceous species are exceedingly variable, and some of them difficult to determine; but the shrubby varieties are remarkably distinct. Some of them, such as S. Hectori and S. Kirkii, must be ranked amongst the most beautiful members of the flora.
| A. Perennial or rarely annual herbs. | |
| * Herbs with broad radical leaves and naked simple or branched scapes. Involucral bracts in 2 series. | |
| Leaves 1–6 in., broadly oblong, cordate at the base, rugose and bristly above, white and tomentose beneath. Scape glandular-tomentose | 1. S. lagopus. |
| Leaves ¾–4 in., broadly oblong to linear-oblong, narrowed at the base, rugose and bristly above, glabrate beneath. Scape cottony | 2. S. bellidioides. |
| Leaves 2–6 in., broadly oblong, both surfaces clothed with snow-white tomentum | 3. S. Haastii. |
| Leaves 3–6 in., broadly oblong or orbicular-oblong, upper surface silky or villous, not bristly, under-surface white and tomentose | 4. S. saxifragoides. |
| ** Herb with an erect leafy stem, corymbose above. Involucral bracts in 2 series. | |
| Leaves 2–10 in., linear. Heads large, with long spreading rays | 5. S. Lyallii. |
| *** Herbs with branched leafy stems. Heads corymbose. Involucral bracts in 1 series. | |
| Stems stout, fistulose, 1–2 ft. Leaves 2–5in., deeply pinnatifid, rather fleshy, mealy-tomentose beneath. Heads corymbose, ⅓–½ in. diam., rays wanting | 6. S. antipodum. |
