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Argyroxiphium
Argyroxiphium is a small genus of Hawaiian rosette-forming perennial shrubs, including the silversword, with long narrow silvery leaves. Grow them in bright, cool, open conditions with sharply drained soil, since they are adapted to high-altitude volcanic slopes.
Argyroxiphium is a small genus of plants in the family Asteraceae. Its members are known by the common names silversword or greensword due to their long, narrow leaves and the silvery hairs on some species. The silverswords belong to a larger radiation of over 30 species, including the physically different genera Dubautia and Wilkesia. This grouping is often referred to as the silversword alliance. Botanist P. H. Raven referred to this radiation as "the best example of adaptive radiation in plants".
Silverswords are endemic to Hawaiʻi and occur only on the islands of Maui and Hawaiʻi. They grow primarily over 1,200 m (3,900 ft) above sea level in bogs, alpine shrublands, or wet shrublands. A. sandwichense is able to grow at high altitudes between 2,125 m (6,972 ft) and 3,750 m (12,300 ft) on cinder and lava with relatively little rainfall. The Haleakalā silversword (A sandwicense ssp. macrocephalum) is constrained to Haleakalā on Maui while the Mauna Kea silversword (A. sandwicense ssp. sandwicense) is specific to Mauna Kea on Hawaiʻi. Each of the other species is found primarily at lower altitudes with much higher annual rainfall.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Argyroxiphium by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
