''Calocephalus francisii'', commonly known as fine-leaf beauty-heads, is a species of flowering plant 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 ...

. It is a small annual with yellow globular-shape flowers and is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to Western Australia.

Description

''Calocephalus francisii'' is an annual herb with some branches upright to downward, mostly smooth but hairy toward the flower heads. The leaves are arranged alternately,

sessile Sessility, or sessile, may refer to: * Sessility (motility), organisms which are not able to move about * Sessility (botany), flowers or leaves that grow directly from the stem or peduncle of a plant * Sessility (medicine), tumors and polyps that ...

, almost linear, lance-shaped or narrowly elliptic-shaped, long, wide, occasionally semi-succulent and smooth. The flower heads may vary in shape from globe, narrowly oblong to oval shaped, long and in diameter. The heads consist of 15-60 flowers, yellow or white translucent

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s in rows of 2 or 3, outer 4 or 5 bracts in a single row. The inner 5-9 bracts in one or two rows, corolla has thickened margins, 5 lobes, tube long and 5

stamens The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filame ...

. Flowering occurs from August to October and the fruit is dry, one-seeded, obovoid, in diameter, pale or pinkish brown.

Taxonomy and naming

This species was first formally described in 1863 by

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (german: Müller; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Vict ...

who gave it the name ''Pachysurus francisii'' in '' Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae''. In 1867

George Bentham George Bentham (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884) was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studi ...

changed the name to ''Calocephalus francisii'' and the description was published in ''

Flora Australiensis ''Flora Australiensis: a description of the plants of the Australian Territory'', more commonly referred to as ''Flora Australiensis'', and also known by its standard abbreviation ''Fl. Austral.'', is a seven-volume flora of Australia published be ...

''.The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

(''francisii'') is in honour of

George William Francis George William Francis (1800–9 August 1865) was an English horticulturalist and science writer. He migrated to the colony of South Australia in 1849 and became the first director of the Adelaide Botanic Garden in 1860. Life Born in London, Fra ...

Distribution and habitat

Fine-leaf beauty-heads grows in sandy situations, outcrops, ridges and salt flats mostly on the west coast of Western Australia.

References

Gnaphalieae Asterales of Australia Flora of Western Australia {{Australia-asterid-stub