Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Cassinia sifton
Common name
Sifton bush, Chinese shrub, Drooping cassinia
Family
Asteraceae
Where found
Wide variety of habitats including dry forest, woodland, grassy areas, disturbed areas, and flood plains. Widespread mainly north from the ACT. Introduced to the ACT.
Probably originally of very restricted distribution on the Central Western Slopes north of the area covered by this key. It became weedy during the NSW gold rushes.
Notes
Shrub to 2 m tall. Bark on old shrubs rough. Older branches with a grey to reddish-brown smooth bark, slightly flaky. Young twigs green (rarely reddish), with prominent leaf-base scars, sparsely to moderately densely hairy with white cottony hairs. Leaves curry-smelling, alternating up the stems, 0.35-1.5 cm long, 0.5-1 mm wide, sticky, upper surface hairless, lower surface hairy with glandular hairs, margins flat to curved down, tips pointed. Flower heads 2-4 mm long, greenish-white when young and fresh, becoming deep red to pale brown, sometimes almost purplish, at maturity, cylindrical to top-shaped or bell-shaped, each with 1-3 florets, 0 petals, in dense to loose clusters 90-180 mm long, of 50-200 flower heads, often one sided and drooping when young. Flowers Spring to Autumn.
According to the Orchard paper as cited below, Cassinia arcuata only occurs naturally in western Victoria, SA, and WA. The species at present known as Cassinia arcuata in NSW is a previously unnamed species, named in that paper Cassinia sifton.
The proposed name Cassinia sifton has not yet been approved by the Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria (accessed 13 April 2021).
General Biosecurity Duty all NSW (as Cassinia arcuata). Always check native vegetation requirements before undertaking control of a weedy native plant.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Cassinia~sifton (accessed 13 April 2021)
The description above is partly based on Orchard, A.E. (2017), A revision of Cassinia (Asteraceae: Gnaphalieae) in Australia. 7. Cassinia subgenus Achromolaena. Australian Systematic Botany 30(4): 358-363, Figs 15, 16, 17 (map).
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