Haastia pulvinaris, or vegetable sheep, is a species of perennial alpine plant that grows in a bizarre, sheep-like formation on scree slopes in the South Island of New Zealand.[2][1][3]
It is not actually a sheep; but from far away, the vegetable sheep can look like a flock of them on the rocky slopes where they live.
Description
Haastia pulvinaris is a stout, white perennial that grows in thick mats. These mats give the appearance of felting together, with each section having a 1" or so wide circular felted leaf, and sometimes with a black dot or an orange flower in the middle. The mats can grow up to a few metres in length, and they give the appearance of a flock of sheep from far away.
The dense wool-like branchlets enable this plant to form tough mats on otherwise inhospitable scree fields. It is often found in isolation, although Epilobium and other grasses and flowers can sometimes grow near them.
Taxonomy
Haastia pulvinaris contains the following varieties:
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
