A small, woolly herb with silvery-grey leaves and yellow daisy flowers. The leaves are edible but are quite bitter. They can be used sparingly in salads. The plant grows in subalpine and alpine areas throughout New Zealand. It is well-adapted to cold, harsh conditions. A plant of the mountains, where the wind never stops. The leaves are covered in a dense layer of white or grey woolly hairs. This woolly coating helps protect the plant from frost, wind, and intense sunlight. The leaves are oblong or spoon-shaped, arranged in a basal rosette. A plant that wears a coat against the cold. The flowers are bright yellow daisies, with many small petals surrounding a central disc. They appear in summer and are followed by fluffy seed heads that disperse the seeds on the wind. A splash of yellow on the grey scree. A small sun in the cold. Native daisy is a plant of the high country. It grows in subalpine and alpine herbfields, on rocky slopes, and in open, exposed areas. It is one of the few plants that can survive the harsh conditions of the alpine zone. The frost, the snow, the wind that never stops. The native daisy does not care. To find native daisy is to climb the mountains. Look for the silvery-grey leaves, the bright yellow flowers. It is a plant of the high places, a splash of colour in the grey alpine zone. The leaves are bitter, but the flowers are bright. A trade-off. A deal struck with the mountain. In the alpine zone, where the rocks are sharp and the air is thin, the native daisy opens its yellow flowers to the sun. The wind flattens the woolly leaves against the ground. The snow covers everything in winter. Then summer comes, and the daisy blooms again. It has been doing this for thousands of years. It will keep doing it. The mountain does not ask for more.