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Gorteria diffusa
Beetle daisy is a small, variable annual daisy from the Western Cape of South Africa and southern Namibia, usually creeping along the ground with bright flower heads. It needs full sun, good drainage and dry summers, which suits a winter-rain climate.
Gorteria diffusa is a highly variable, small annual herbaceous plant or rarely a shrublet that is assigned to the daisy family (Compositae or Asteraceae). Like in almost all Asteraceae, the individual flowers are 5-merous, small and clustered in typical heads, and are surrounded by an involucre, consisting of in this case several whorls of bracts, which are merged at their base. In G. diffusa, the centre of the head is taken by relatively few male and bisexual yellow to orange disc florets, and is surrounded by one complete whorl of 5–14 infertile cream to dark orange ray florets, sometimes with a few ray florets nearer to the centre. None, some or all of them may have darker spots at their base. The fruits remain attached to their common base when ripe, and it is the entire head that breaks free from the plant.
The species is endemic to an area between the Orange River on the border with Namibia in the north to Clanwilliam, Western Cape in the south. This area has cool rainy winters and dry hot summers.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Gorteria diffusa 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
