Plants of
South Australia
Senecio glomeratus ssp. glomeratus
Asteraceae
Short-fruit Purple Fireweed,
Swamp Groundsel,
Toothed Groundsel
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Adelaide
Arkaroola
Ceduna
Coober Pedy
Hawker
Innamincka
Marla
Marree
Mount Gambier
Oodnadatta
Renmark
Wudinna
Keith
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Botanical art

Kath Alcock paintings: 3

Prior names

Erechtites arguta var. dissecta

Senecio argutus

Erechtites arguta

Senecio glomeratus, partly

Common names

Short-fruit Purple Fireweed

Swamp Groundsel

Toothed Groundsel

Etymology

Senecio from the Latin 'senex' meaning an old man; referring to the white pappus attached to the seed. Glomeratus means clustered.

Distribution and status

Found on Kangaroo Island, southern Mount Lofty Ranges to the lower South-east in South Australia, growing in clearings or margins of sclerophyll forests or along roadsides. Also found in Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. Native. Common in South Australia. Uncommon in New South Wales. Common in the other states.
Herbarium regions: Eyre Peninsula, Murray, Southern Lofty, Kangaroo Island, South Eastern, Green Adelaide
NRM regions: Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges, Eyre Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, South Australian Murray-Darling Basin, South East
AVH map: SA distribution map (external link)

Plant description

Erect annual herb to 2m tall with a woody base. Leaves alternating up the stems to 20cm long and 30mm wide, sometimes larger, flat, hairy to slightly hairy. Leaves in the middle third of the stems with basal lobes, somewhat stem clasping, margins coarsely toothed to deeply lobed, the lobes often toothed. Uppermost leaves flat to linear, margins toothed or appearing entire due to rolling. Flower-heads top-shaped to almost globular, green to purple, with yellow to orange flowers, in open groups, often of 50-300 flower heads per stem. Differ to Senecio glomeratus ssp. longifructus by having red-brown seeds, hairs on the seed usually more than 5 mm long and the bases of the flower-heads are often purple. Flowering between November and February. Fruits are pale brown vase-shaped daisy-head. Seeds are brown oblong seed to 3 mm long and 0.5 mm wide, covered in white hairs and with numerous deep striations, pappus not persisting Seed embryo type is spatulate fully developed.

Seed collection and propagation

Collect seeds between February and April. Collect heads that are fat, hard and turning brown by picking off the whole heads. Place the heads in a tray for a week to dry. Then rub the heads gently with your hands or a rubber bung to dislodge the seeds. Viable seeds will be fat and hard. Store the seeds with a desiccant such as dried silica beads or dry rice, in an air tight container in a cool and dry place.

Seeds stored:
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LocationNo. of seeds
(weight grams)
Number
of plants
Date
collected
Collection number
Collection location
Date
stored
% ViabilityStorage
temperature
 
MSB

16,200 (2.54 g)
1-Dec-2006RJB70690
Southern Lofty
BGA3,000 (0.48 g)153-Jan-2007RJB70987
Murray
1-Aug-200770%-18°C
Location: BGA — the seeds are stored at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, MSB — the seeds are stored at the Millennium Seed Bank, Kew, England.
Number of plants: This is the number of plants from which the seeds were collected.
Collection location: The Herbarium of South Australia's region name.
% Viability: Percentage of filled healthy seeds determined by a cut test or x-ray.