Authors: Miers
Boopis agglomeratus). Monocarpic species with a large, fairly coarse flat succulent rosette of oblong, sinuate-laciniate usually lettuce-green, annual leaves eventually to about 15cm long, tapering somewhat at the base into a broad white petiole. At flowering time the central crown expands into a bulky, pithy body. Brief stalks, longer towards the outside, and each with a single short leaf, carry numerous terminal rounded heads 2.5-4cm across. These are massed tightly together into a large, elegantly geometrical shallow dome as much as 15-20cm or more across by 10cm tall made up of white flowers 6-12mm long. Each head has a frill of eight to twelve involucral bracts, fused at the base and trilobed at the tip, late spring to summer. At maturity, the plants shrivel and crumble into heaps of large, pale angular narrow-winged and tapering achenes. N.a. var. laciniatus is distinguished by its irregularly laciniate-dentate leaves. Var. pinnatifidus has deeply pinnatifid petiolate leaves five to eight bracts only, and with a much less tight grouping of flowerheads towards the outside; it is possible to confuse this species with N. caespitosus. Look for the much longer, usually 5cm or more, and broader petioles and its narrowly winged achenes. Argentina and Chile, in the northern central cordilleras in coarse scree, bare fine gravelly slopes, flats, waysides and stream banks at 2500-3500m. An extremely distinctive and quirky plant, perhaps best visualised as the rosulate doll's house cauliflower, though in truth, the total flowering span often comes close to matching that of a full-sized cauliflower! [Pl.295].
