The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network

Can anyone offer an identification for this Brachyscome.
I have tentitavely identified it as Brachyscome longiscapa but it may be something else.
Loaction Mt Kakanui, North Otago 1416 m

Yes. That is Brachyscome longiscapa s.l.

Hi David, would you be willing to let us put this photo up on the website? It would make a great addition to the ones already up on the fact sheet.
Cheers,
Jesse

Hi Peter, Thanks for the ID. There are several Brachyscome variants growing in North Otago which I find very confusing. I thought the plant in the photo (p196 no 2) I contributed to Alan Mark's book ' Above the Treeline' was this species but I now have my doubts. I will follow this up with another set of photos.

Hi Jesse, You are welcome to use the photo for the website. I will send you a second example collected at a lower elevation and photographed from the specimen
Kakanui Conservation Area, Altitude: 994 m

Further to my last comment here are three further examples of a Brachyscome that shows features of Brachyscome longiscapa Brachyscome_Mt Kyeburn1

Brachyscome_Mt Kyeburn2

Brachyscome_Mt Kyeburn3. This is the photo that appears in Above the Treeline (p196 no2) as Brachyscome longiscapa. The flowers are larger and the scape is proportionately shorter and thicker than the Mt Kakanui plants

What more can I say? :-) You will note I said s.l. (sensu lato). I am not surprised you had doubts and found all that variation. Brachyscome as a genus is in urgent need of taxonomic revision. My colleagues and I initiated the process with a limited chromosome study published this year in NZJB but we need someone to follow that. Brachyscome here would make a nice tidy M.Sc. project.

Support that Peter. There are a range of Brachyscome in Otago, but they are not easy to assign to the multitude of published species. All the pictured ones are within what I consider B. longiscapa, but there is a large flowered version (last 2 photos) that grows intermixed with the smaller flowered version and with a later flowering time which is worthy of further thought.

Thanks for your comments Mike, in so far as you can make any sense of Brachyscome I am inclined to think the large-flowered plants are distinct. When I originally identified them I thought they were closest to B. longiscapa but I have seen plants since that better fit the description. (Vol 1 of the Flora)