A modern reference to temperate woody plants, including updated content from this site and much new material, can be found at Trees and Shrubs Online.

Senecio kirkii Hook. f. Ex Kirk

Modern name

Brachyglottis kirkii (Kirk) C.J.Webb

Synonyms

S. glastifolius Hook. f., not L. f.; Urostemon kirkii (Hook. f. ex Kirk) B. Nord.

An evergreen shrub described as of erect growth in its wild state and from 6 to 12 ft high, quite devoid of down in all its parts. Leaves very variable in shape; linear, oblanceolate, obovate, or ovate, 2 to 5 in. long, 13 to 112 in. wide, always tapered at the base, but either pointed, blunt or rounded at the end and either entire or shallowly and widely toothed; stalk 14 to 34 in. long. Flower-heads produced numerously in a flattish, terminal, much branched corymb 4 to 12 in. wide. Each flower-head is 114 to 2 in. wide, with ten or less snow-white ray-florets; disk-florets forming a circular, central, yellow mass 13 in. wide. Bot. Mag., t. 8524.

Native of the North Island, New Zealand; common in wooded and hilly country up to 2,500 ft altitude. Cheeseman describes it as ‘a very remarkable and beautiful species, the flowers being so abundantly borne as to conceal the leaves, the multitude of snow-white ray-florets rendering the shrub conspicuous from afar.’ It was introduced to cultivation here by Major A. A. Dorrien-Smith and was flowered by him at Tresco Abbey in the Scilly Isles in April 1913. It is only in the warmest parts of our islands that it is likely to succeed.


Genus

Senecio

Other species in the genus