Description: Perennial, non-rhizomatous, tufted herb with mostly basal leaves.
Leaves entire or pinnatisect and with 1–6 lobes, the lower leaves with long, coarse, septate, brownish hairs at the base. Scape with some leaves which reduce in size up the scape.
Flowering heads solitary, heterogamous, radiate. Involucre of bracts in c. 2 distinct rows, margins scarious, glabrous. Receptacle convex. Ray florets femaile, white or bluish. Disc florets bisexual, yellow 5-lobed. Stamens 5. Style with sterile apical appendages.
Achenes thin, brown, concolourous, fruit body smooth or mintely tuberculate, glabrous, longitudinal ridges absent, wing-like extensions with entire or barely notched edges, the edges biserrate, eglandular. Pappus of c. 10–15 scale-like bristles.
Distribution and occurrence: South-eastern, mainland Australia and Tasmania.
The name commemorates William Allitt. He collected herbarium specimens, including the new lectotype specimen of Brachyscome cardiocarpa, in the south-west of Victoria while he was curator of the botanic gardens at Portland from the1860s to the 1880s.
Text by Louisa Murray
Taxon concept: Short, P.S., (2004) Muelleria 20: 54
| One species in NSW: Allittia cardiocarpa |
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