''Podolepis lessonii'' is an erect annual herb native to

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

, belonging to the

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 ...

family.

Taxonomy

The species was first described in 1829 as ''Panaetia lessonii'' by the French botanist,

Henri Cassini Count Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini (9 May 1781 – 23 April 1832) was a French botanist and natural history, naturalist, who specialised in the sunflower family (Asteraceae) (then known as family Compositae). He was the youngest of five chi ...

. The species epithet, ''lessonii'', honours Monsieur Lesson who collected a specimen from King George Sound in 1826. The species was assigned to the genus, ''

Podolepis ''Podolepis'' is a genus of flowering plants in the tribe Gnaphalieae within the family Asteraceae. It is endemic to Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the m ...

'', in 1867 by George Bentham. The name currently accepted by the Western Australian Herbarium is ''Panaetia lessonii'' Cass., because of the studies of Jeffrey Jeanes, who distinguished '' Panaetia'' from the genera, ''Podolepis'', ''Siemssenia'' and ''Walshia,'' using the following characters: # the outer florets are all tubular; and # the cypselas are minutely tuberculate and lack long finger-like papillae.

Distribution and habitat

It is found widely in Beard's South-West and Eremaean provinces, in many different habitats and soils.

References

External links

''Podolepis lessonii'' occurrence data
from the

Australasian Virtual Herbarium The ''Australasian Virtual Herbarium'' (AVH) is an online resource that allows access to plant specimen data held by various Australian and New Zealand herbaria. It is part of the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), and was formed by the amalgamat ...

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15595786 lessonii Flora of Western Australia