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Celmisia

This page is to illustrate 3 limited distribution Celmisia species and to introduce the Genus Celmisia in general. These are species that are not illustrated in many books and many of you will not be familiar with them. I had never seen them until 2002
For a start I will just introduce the genus as a whole.
The name Celmisia comes from the Greek Celmis a priestess for the Mother of the Gods Cybele. It is a large genus containing around 60 species almost all found in New Zealand with more than 50 of the species  alpine in distribution. The flowers are predominantly made up of white ray florets (petals) with yellow disc florets (the yellow centre.) Some species have pink tinged petals when the flowers are just opening up, but they usually become white when the flower reaches maturity.

Important identification features are the arrangement of hairs on leaves, the tomentum (white felt like fluff which is a feature of some species on the underneath and sometimes upper part of leaves) The flowers are rather uniform but always pretty, so its the leaves and there arrangement and general growth form that you will need to look at. Personally I grow them for there leaves and growth form but that's just me. If you really get keen the papas hairs on the seed are another good way to ID them. The growth form varies from very narrow leafed species such as Celmisia markii, spedeni and gracalenta to cushion species such as C. argentia, sessilliflora and clavata to the large rosettes of Celmisia semicordata.

Hybridisation is common and produces some very attractive plants. All the species are small enough for  the garden and many are suitable for pot or trough culture.

The 3 species I photographed on a recent trip up to the top of the South Island are Celmisia similis which is related to the more widespread C. laricifolia. The name alludes to its similarity to laricifolia. In my opinion though similis is far superior to laricifolia and would make a lovely potted plant. It has much tighter rosettes with the leaves growing only at the ends of the branch lets rather than all along the branchless as in laricifolia. The leaves are wider and a nicer lead colour, the flowers are also bigger than in laricifolia and stand out more from the rosettes. Where I saw it, it grew mainly in rock crevasses and formed
extensive cushions or mats on the tops of cliff edges. Its habitat on the Denniston plateau (800m-1000m) north east of West Port was very barren and is still used today for mining coal.

Having grown this specimen for 2 years now in similar conditions to C. laricifolia I can report that it keeps its tighter habit and the colouration the only disadvantage may be that it is slightly frost tender (added October 2006 edit)

The second and third species Id like to introduce are C. hieracifolia and C. rutlandii. These two species I found on Mt. Stokes at the extreme top of the South Island, North of Picton. They grow on a tiny patch of ground just above tree line at the summit of Mt. Stokes (1200m) Celmisia hieracifolia is found in other places in Nelson too and the North Island but I had never seen it before. It is a little low growing, sticky rosette plant related to C. dalli. Its name arises from its similarity to  species of Hieracium. On Mt. Stokes the plants were all very rusty coloured in appearance especially the tomentum underneath the leaves with a more rusty green colour on the upper surface ( I wonder if paint catalogues list rusty green colour?) The flowers are quite large and showy for the size of the plant. This species forms extensive patches between the rocks on the summit. The other species I photographed up there was C. rutlandii. This species was quite unusual in that the leaves were enrolled so the underneath was almost entirely obscured. The upper surface was quite tough looking and it looks like a species suited to the dry mountains of Marlborough where it is restricted to.