Family: Asteraceae (daisies)

Status:

Description:
A flat or low spreading rosette, with long narrow, deeply lobed, greyish-green leaves spreading from a central point. Flowers are typical daisies, with cream to yellow petals and a black centre.

Preferred habitat and impacts:
A weed of bare ground such as road verges, and heavily grazed pastures. It may take over degraded pasture. It can taint milk, and high nitrate levels have caused death in sheep and cattle.

Dispersal:
Seed is wind-spread, or spread in contaminated soil.

Look-alikes:
The garden plant gazania (Gazania rigens and cultivars) has a similar low habit and similar flowers. It occasionally naturalises on road verges or from dumping in bush. It forms a spreading clump, rather than consisting of a single rosette.

Control:
Chip out small infestations with a mattock, being careful to sever the root well below ground level, to prevent re-sprouting from the crown. Spot-spray or boom spray for large infestations.