Rainer Rehwinkel sent me an email stating I posted Janet’s pics (thank you Janet😀) on the NSW Plant Identification Facebook site (see: https://www.facebook.com/groups/332752936930981/)and today received confirmation that it clearly isn’t the Taraxacum, with the suggestion it might be a Picris angustifolia. Having recently seen this species, it didn’t gel for me at the time, until I realised that there are two local subspecies. I had seed subsp. angustifolia, but when I looked up the other subspecies, that one fits the pics that Janet sent!
I am fairly confident that what we have is Picris angustifolia subsp. merxmuelleri.
It is pretty aberrant. I have only seen it once and the general appearance of the plant (habit) was quite different. https://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/plants_se_nsw/key/plants_se_nsw/Media/Html/entities/picris_angustifolia.htm
I am interested why the main photo in this sighting has been put up as Taraxacum aristum with the comment "no sightings' with no acknowledgement. Was somebody having two-bob each way?
Thanks Janet - re teh glitch programming pulls photos from first sightings when their are no photos in a species field guide - I think this is what happened here except it shouldn't have taken one from a suggestion
I forwarded the sighting to Jackie Miles, who has done years of survey work in Kosciuszko NP. She wrote back: I think Janet's plant actually is the alpine/subalpine form of Picris angustifolia ssp merx-mulleri. I have similar photos from Kellys Plain where I do surveys with Keith McDougall every year for ox-eye daisy. He tells me that the grassland form is much more compact than the form found in forests, which I have also seen up in Kosi.
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