Felicia Rosulata

''Felicia rosulata'' is a hairy, perennial, herbaceous plant of up to high, that is assigned to the family Asteraceae. It has a rosette of elliptic leaves with 3–5 veins, and long, hairy stalks, each topped with one floral head consisting of about thirty middle blue ray florets encircling many yellow disc florets. It can be found in the mountains of Lesotho, eastern South Africa and Eswatini.

Description

''Felicia rosulata'' is a perennial, herbaceous plant of up to high. Underneath its leaf rosettes with single-headed upright stems, it has short branched rhizomes, and rarely short runners are present too. Most leaves are in a rosette near the base, alternately arranged on the stem, the lower inverted egg-shaped to elliptic, about long and 2 cm (1 in) wide (rarely 9 × 3 cm), entire or with teeth along its margins. The leaves at the base each have three or five conspicuous main veins, and their surface is short and densely hairy. The leaves along the stem above the rosette are much smaller, lance-shaped, the lowest up to long and wide, becoming smaller towards the top.

The flower heads sit individually on top of a densely hairy stalk, near to the head also with scattered glandular hairs. The involucre is about across, and consists of three rows of about equally long bracts, without resin ducts, covered with long bristly and slightly glandular hairs, less hairy further inwards. Those in the outer and inner rows are about long and 1 mm (0.04 in) wide, those in the middle long and 2 mm (0.08 in) wide. About thirty female ray florets with a blue strap and a hairy tube. These encircle many bisexual, disc florets with a yellow corolla of long. In the center of each corolla are five anthers merged into a tube, through which the style grows when the floret opens, hoovering up the pollen on its shaft. At the tip of both style branches is a narrowly triangular appendage. Around the base of the corolla are many white, shortly toothed, deciduous pappus bristles. The brown, dry, one-seeded, indehiscent fruits called cypselae are 3 mm (0.12 in) long and 1 mm (0.6 in) wide, have a light brown marginal ridge, and the more or less smooth surface carries short hairs.

''Felicia rosulata'' is a diploid having nine sets of homologue chromosomes (2n=18).

Taxonomy

As far as is known, the species was first collected for science by Ferdinand Krauss on the Tafelberg in Natal in 1839. It was described by Carl Heinrich "Bipontinus" Schultz, who named it '' Agathaea natalensis'' in 1843. In 1865, William Henry Harvey, who was a lumper sunk ''Agataea'' in ''Aster'', creating the combination ''Aster natalensis''. In 1897, Rudolf Schlechter reassigned it again, now to ''Felicia'', making the combination ''Felicia natalensis''. However, the combination ''Felicia natalensis'' had already been created by Bipontinus, also in 1843, a name that is now synonymous with ''Felicia erigerioides'', an older name created by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1836. Therefore, since ''Felicia natalensis'' is not available, Peter Frederick Yeo created the new combination ''Felicia rosulata'' in 1970. In his 1973 revision of the genus ''Felicia'', Jürke Grau regarded all of these names synonymous.

Distribution

''Felicia rosulata'' can be found in Lesotho, Eswatini, and South Africa (Eastern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga).

Conservation

The continued survival of ''Felicia rosulata'' is considered to be of least concern.

Use

''Felicia rosulata'' is used as an ornamental in rock gardens.

References

External links

Photos of ''Felicia rosulata'' on iNaturalist

Line drawing of ''Felicia rosulata''

Distribution map of ''Felicia rosulata''

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15596021

rosulata
Flora of Southern Africa
Plants described in 1843