''Senecio coronatus'' (

Thunb. Carl Peter Thunberg, also known as Karl Peter von Thunberg, Carl Pehr Thunberg, or Carl Per Thunberg (11 November 1743 – 8 August 1828), was a Swedish naturalist and an "apostle" of Carl Linnaeus. After studying under Linnaeus at Uppsala Un ...

) Harv. aka the woolly grassland senecio is a 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 ...

, endemic to and widespread in

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of ...

, occurring in the moister southern and eastern regions. It is perennial with large, leathery, broadly elliptic, erect leaves growing from a large, underground rootstock with a woolly covering. Up to 20 capitula are arranged in a terminal cluster, each with some 10 slender yellow ray florets.

Phytochemicals

This species is capable of concentrating the toxic element

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

in its leaves, a strategy which appears to be an effective deterrent against

herbivory A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:coronatus, Senecio Senecio Plants described in 1865