Kingdom Plantae Family Asteraceae Genus Ursinia | Order Asterales Tribe Anthemideae Rank Species | |
 | ||
Similar Ursinia, Ursinia anthemoides, Ursinia speciosa, Gazania krebsiana, Hermannia | ||
Ursinia nana DC. is a Southern African annual herb belonging to the Daisy family of Asteraceae. It is a pioneer plant of disturbed ground and usually grows to a height of only 30 cm. It flowers throughout the rainy season and, in mild weather with late rains, well into the autumn months. The leaves are deeply laciniate and bunched. In his 1912 contribution to Botanische Jahrbucher fur Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie, the enigmatic German botanist Reinhold Conrad Muschler describes Ursinia engleriana, found near Okahandja in South West Africa, as a new species of African composite. Later this was considered to be the same as Ursinia nana described by de Candolle. Muschler praised the species as being extremely ornamental.