Gnidia kraussiana

Description

Gnidia kraussiana is a useful medicinal plant, but can be very poisonous to humans. It can also be very poisonous to foraging animals.Gnidia kraussiana is a robust small grassland shrublet, up to 0.5 m in height. The stems are erect and hairy, arising from a perennial underground tuber. The small, alternate leaves are lanceolate with pointed tips, covered with silky hairs on both surfaces, with margins often fringed with hairs, 30 mm x 10 mm, and borne on short stalks. Flowers are yellow, tubular, sweetly scented, covered with silky hairs, and borne in dense leafless terminal flowerheads of 18-45 flowers. Gnidia kraussiana flowers throughout the year. It can be confused with G. burchellii, which is a woody shrub with leaves congested towards the ends of branches, and also with G. polycephala, which has numerous, erect leafless branches, and with few-flowered, hairy heads, each with a few large, papery bracts below the flowers.