''Acunniana'' is a monospecific genus in the family

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

which is found only in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

. In the wild, ''Acunniana procumbens'' closely resembles species of the genera '' Indocypraea'' and '' Apowollastonia''. The genus is named for its discoverer, Allan Cunningham, whose name abbreviates to A.Cunn.

Description

''Acunniana procumbens'' is a perennial herb which grows 0.3–1.0 m tall. It has opposite leaves which are simple and 25–55 mm long, 10–35 mm wide. It has 2 series of bracts; the outer bracts are green, herbaceous, and exceeding the inner bracts and disc florets; the inner bracts green and all the bracts are abaxially hairy. Ray florets are pistillate and fertile while the corollas are yellow. The disc florets functionally staminate and don't form achenes. The paleae are lanceolate, conduplicate, stiff, coriaceous, opaque, green in flower, becoming stramineous, and lack an abaxial crest. The midrib is apparent plus several striae with its tip slightly expanded or slightly lobed, and abaxially shortly scabrous. Its achenes are only developed from ray florets, and are brown to grey in color and 4.0–4.5 mm long. They are slightly compressed, 3-angled, ovoid, rounded apically, with sparse, minute hairs apically.

References

Heliantheae Flora of Australia Monotypic Asteraceae genera {{Heliantheae-stub