Authors:
This and Haastia pulvinaris are the most famous 'vegetable sheep'. Light grey cushion-forming, up to 2m. across and 1m. thick. Rosettes tightly packed forming geometric designs of hexagons and pentagons, covered with silky silvery hairs, but the youngest leaves of each rosette, which are at the centre, are less hairy at first, giving each a darker grey-green 'eye'. Flowerheads 3mm across, crimson. Drier mountains of South Island only, from 1100-1800m in frost-shattered but stable rocks and stable screes. A n outstanding species and one of the most beautiful and challenging of all high alpine cushion plants. The slowness of its growth can be gauged by the fact that a specimen grown from seed took 15 years to reach 10cm in diameter. [Pl.415].
