Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Olearia phlogopappa
Common name
Dusty daisy-bush
Family
Asteraceae
Where found
Forest, woodland, heath, shrubland, and rocky areas. Widespread.
Most records in NSW do not mention subspecies. Of the records that do:
subsp. continentalis: Moist to wet forest. Widespread but uncommon.
subsp. flavescens: Woodland, heath, and shrubland, often in rocky areas, at high altitudes. Kosciuszko National Park, the mountains to the north, and ACT.
subsp. serrata: Woodland and heath at high altitudes. Kosciuszko National Park and the western edge of the ACT.
Notes
Shrub to 2 m high. Branchlets whitish-grey, sometimes yellowish-grey with a scurfy stellate tomentum, later becoming hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, scattered, or crowded, 0.8–12 cm long, 2–17 mm wide, highly variable in size and shape, upper surface grey or green, hairless to moderately stellate-hairy (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), sometimes with stalkless glands; lower surface white to grey or yellow, with dense, minute, stellate hairs of equal size, usually with some stalkless glands; venation finely reticulate, shallowly impressed, secondary veins often not visible on the lower surface, margins entire to deeply lobed. Flower heads with 6–30 white 'petals', and yellow centres. Flower heads 15–25 mm in diameter overall, bell-shaped to hemispherical below the 'petals'. Flower heads at the ends of short lateral shoots, in clusters of 2-8, occasionally single, at or near the ends of the stems.
subsp. continentalis: Leaves widest below the middle, 3–12 cm long, 7–17 mm wide. Stalkless glands usually present on the lower leaf surface. Leaf margins usually scalloped. Leaf stalks 2.5–5.5 mm long.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
subsp. flavescens: Leaves widest at or above the middle, 1.6-5.6 cm long, 6–15 mm wide. upper surface often glandular. lower surface often yellowish, at least on drying. Leaf margins entire, shallowly wavy, or, rarely, scalloped. Leaf stalks 2–6 mm long.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
Rare Vic.
subsp. serrata: Leaves widest at or above the middle, 0.8–2.25 cm long, 3.3–9 mm wide. Stalkless glands absent. lower surface white. Leaf margins coarsely toothed. Leaf stalks 0.3–2.5 mm long.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
Rare Vic.
PlantNET description of species and key to subspecies: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Olearia~phlogopappa (accessed 13 April 2021)
This identification key and fact sheets are available as a free mobile application:
