Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Actinotus helianthi

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, Bomaderry Creek Regional Reserve near Nowra

Leaves. Photographer John Tann, Sydney

Painting from The Flowering Plants and Ferns of New South Wales - Part 1 (1895) by J H Maiden. NSW Government Printing Office.

Common name

Flannel flower

Family

Apiaceae

Where found

Dry forest, woodland, heath, shrubland, and rocky sites. Coastal. Ranges north from west of Milton. Tablelands and Western Slopes north of the Hume Highway.

Notes

Annual or perennial herb to 1.5 m tall. Stems hairy. Leaves alternating up the stems, to 5 cm long and 50 mm wide, compound, with 3 deeply divided leaflets, surfaces usually grey-green, hairy. Flowers in headlike clusters of tiny flowers, surrounded by 10-20 white to cream, sometimes tipped green, bracts ('petals)', the whole flower head 20-80 mm in diameter. Individual flowers white to creamish, with 0 petals. Outer flowers in the head male, inner flowers bisexual. Flowers all year, mainly Spring.

Protected NSW.

Introduced to Vic.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Actinotus~helianthi  (accessed 2 January, 2021)