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| This low growing plant is endemic to St Helena. It has thin stems straggling
to about 45 cm. The leaves are unstalked and strap-shaped, and both leaves
and stems are covered with hairs and small, glistening sticky drops. The
daisy-like flowers, borne singly on long stalks arising in the axils of
the leaves, are about 12 mm across and have yellow ray florets. The hard,
angular seeds (hence "boneseed") are about 2 mm long and grouped
in the form of a star on the ripened flower head. This plant is an annual
or short-lived perennial, germinating with the onset of the winter rains,
flowering and producing seed quickly, then dying back completely during
the hot dry summer season. Boneseed is not an easy plant to find, occurring locally between 30 and 250 m altitude in the driest, hottest parts of the island. It occurs on Bencoolen and Boxwood Hill and near Prosperous Bay, but especially in the dry valleys near Sandy Bay; we have found it near the base of the Asses Ears. Burchell also recorded it from the Heart Shape Waterfall, and Norman Kerr found it between Flagstaff and Sugar Loaf. |
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