Berardia lanuginosa

Berardia lanuginosa (often called Berardia subacaulis) is a stout, low-growing perennial herb endemic to the southwestern European Alps, with a thick, woody taproot and a basal rosette of leaves arising at or just above ground level. The whole plant is densely covered in long, white, woolly-lanate hairs giving it a silvery-grey appearance and helping reduce water loss in its harsh stony habitats. Basal leaves are large, broadly ovate to nearly orbicular, 5-15 cm long, with shallowly toothed or sinuate margins, a leathery texture, and conspicuously prominent venation on the underside. Flowering stems are very short or almost absent, raising the inflorescence only slightly above the leaves. Each plant typically bears a single large, terminal, sessile or shortly stalked capitulum 3-5 cm across, surrounded by overlapping, lanceolate, woolly involucral bracts. The florets are all tubular and creamy yellow to pale straw-coloured, lacking ray florets. The fruit is a dry, ribbed achene crowned with a feathery pappus of plumose bristles. It grows on calcareous and siliceous screes and stony alpine slopes between about 1800 and 2800 m elevation in the Cottian and Maritime Alps.