Gazania rigens var. leucolaena

Gazania rigens var. leucolaena, the trailing gazania and in Afrikaans the rankbotterblom (runner or shoot butter flower) or strandgousblom (beach marigold), is a coastal, daisy-bearing perennial that forms dense mats.

G. rigens used to be called G. splendens. Rigens is a Latin word meaning rigid. The name may refer to the involucral bracts at the base of the capitulum or the pappus scales on the seeds.

The leaves are lanceolate, tapering at the base into the petiole. The leaves are white-felted on both surfaces. The variety name leucolaena (Latin) means white cloak, referring to the white woolly leaf covering on both surfaces.

The distribution of this variety is along the coast in the east of the Western Cape from Mossel Bay to Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) in the Eastern Cape.

The habitat is coastal dunes and rocky outcrops along beaches. None of the three varieties of G. rigens is considered threatened early in the twenty first century.

G. rigens var. uniflora has white felt-like hairs only on the lower leaf surfaces. It grows in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal in similar coastal habitat. There is a third variety, G. rigens var. rigens, with larger capitula (flowerheads) and spots at the base of the yellow or orange ray florets. The latter variety apparently only occurs in cultivation.

All three varieties are widely grown as ornamental groundcovers in sunny places. The species is naturalised in some coastal parts of Australia (JSTOR; Wikipedia; www.plantzafrica.com; http://redlist.sanbi.org).