Microseris lanceolata (Walp.) Sch.Bip.

Perennial herb; underground stem sympodial, erect, 3–25 mm long; roots several, tuberous to narrowly cylindric-tapering, sometimes producing adventitious shoots. Leaves all basal, linear to narrowly lanceolate or oblanceolate, 5–35 cm long, 2–20 mm wide, entire to dentate or pinnatifid. Scapes unbranched, naked, 10–60 cm long; capitula 20–60-flowered; involucre 10–25 mm long; outer bracts subequal, usually calyculate; inner bracts elongate, ±equal. Florets: ligules yellow; outer ligules 10–20 mm long and usually well-exceeding involucre. Achenes slender, straight, 4–12 mm long. Pappus parts 8–30, ±equal, each with a basal scale 3–12 mm long, 0.3–1.3 mm wide tapering into a scabrid to subplumose awn. [Editorial note, 27 August 2020: this description from the Flora of Australia Volume 37 (Sneddon 2015) may include elements of Microseris walteri Gand. which was treated as a synonym of M. lanceolata at that time; see Walsh (2016).]

It is a temperate plant. It grows in open woodland and heath. It needs well drained soil. It can grow in sun or light shade. They can tolerate snow and frost. Tasmania Herbarium.

Sneddon (2015) cites that the fleshy, tuberous roots were a native food source (Gott 1983), however this would largely now refer to the more widespread, now recognised Microseris walteri (see Ethnobotany under Microseris).

Plants can be grown from seed or by divisions of the tubers.