Silver-leaf daisy facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Pleurophyllum hookeri
Flowering Pleurophyllum hookeri (foreground) on Campbell Island; the yellow-flowers in the background are of Bulbinella rossii
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Asterales
Family:	Asteraceae
Tribe:	Astereae
Genus:	Pleurophyllum
Species:	P. hookeri
Binomial name
Pleurophyllum hookeri Buch.

Highland herbfield on Macquarie Island dominated by the silver-leafed Pleurophyllum hookeri.

Pleurophyllum hookeri, also known as the silver-leaf daisy or sage-green rosette herb, is a herbaceous plant in the daisy family, a megaherb native to the subantarctic Auckland and Campbell Islands of New Zealand and Australia’s Macquarie Island. It grows up to 900 mm in height and has crimson button flowers and long, silky, silver leaves, with a large carrot-like tuber and long roots. It also has the unusual feature of a vertically contractile stem, most of which is underground, which serves to keep the leaf rosette close to the ground surface and the plant anchored securely against the very strong winds typical of subantarctic islands. Prior to the successful eradication of introduced mammals on Macquarie Island in 2011, it had been threatened there by black rats and European rabbits.