Flora of the Hawaiian Islands
Dicotyledon
   Asteraceae -- The Sunflower Family Bibliography
      Argyroxiphium grayanum

Common name(s): silversword, greensword
General Information
DistributionIn the Hawaiian Islands, endemic to Maui.
















Click here for detailed USGS map by Jonathan Price
Habit
Erect and unbranched, or branched and erect or decumbent rosette shrubs up to 2 m tall; vegetative stems usually 1-5(-15) dm long.
Leaves
Leaves green, usually narrowly elliptic-sword-shaped, broadest at or slightly above middle, flattened, 5-31 cm long, 0.4-2.3 cm wide, 5-11-nerved, glabrous or puberulent to hispidulous or occasionally becoming canescent on basal portions of upper surface, margins usually remotely hispid-ciliate at base, becoming densely pilosulous-ciliate at apex.
Flowers
Heads usually 10-200 or more in usually lax, racemose inflorescences 10-100 cm long, 6-40 cm wide; receptacle conical, up to ca. 1 cm in diameter, false involucral cup consisting of usually 20-45 receptacular bracts 8-13 mm long; ray florets usually 0-10 per head, rays pale yellow or purple-tinged, 2-3-lobed, narrowly tubular for ca. 1 mm basally, apically broadened into a limb ca. 2 mm wide and 1.5-3.5 mm long; disk florets ca. 100-300 per head, corollas pale yellow, 3-4.5(-5) mm long, glabrous or puberulent at base, eglandular; pappus of ray florets reduced to a minute coroniform rim, that of disk achenes consisting of 2-9 unequal scales 1-2(-3) mm long on the dorsal summits.
Fruit
Achenes somewhat arcuate, 6-9 mm long.
Chromosomes
2n = 28*