Ozothamnus cassinioides (Benth.) Anderb.

Asteraceae

Anderberg, A.A. (1991) Opera Botanica 104: 89.

Everlasting

Usually flowers and fruits as a shrub about 2 m tall but can grow into a small tree.

Leaf blades small, about 1.2-3 x 0.2-0.3 cm, margins recurved, underside covered with matted white or pale brown hairs which completely hide the venation. Young twigs clothed in hairs like those on the leaves.

Each flower head about 5-7 mm diam. containing about 10-20 flowers and the flowers are +/- enclosed by overlapping bracts. Calyx consists of a whorl of hairs (pappus). Anthers fused to form a tube but the filaments are free from one another.

Fruits about 0.5 mm long, produced within a head of overlapping, white or pale brown bracts. Each fruit consists of a cylindrical nut with a plume of white hairs at one end. Each plume hair is armed with numerous microscopic barbs. Embryo brown and oily, cotyledons only slightly wider than the radicle.

Cotyledons about 4 x 2.5 mm. First pair of leaves opposite. At the tenth leaf stage: leaves narrowly obovate, about 12-16 x 3-4 mm, apex mucronate, base attenuate, clothed in white matted gossamer-like hairs. Stem and terminal bud clothed in similar hairs.

Endemic to Australia, occurs in NEQ, CEQ and southwards to coastal central and south-eastern Queensland, and also coastal central New South Wales. Altitudinal range in NEQ from 700-800 m. Grows in or near monsoon forest and vine thickets.

Helichrysum cassinioides Benth., Flora Austral. 3: 630(1867), Type: Queensland, Keppel Bay & Broadsound, R. Brown; holo: BM?.