''Cassinia diminuta'', commonly known as dwarf cassinia, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae and is endemic to Victoria in Australia. It is a small, erect, aromatic shrub with spreading, needle-shaped leaves that are covered with cottony hair on the underside, and corymbs of up to two hundred

heads A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may no ...

of flowers arranged in corymbs.

Description

''Cassinia diminuta'' is an erect, aromatic shrub that typically grows to a height of with densely-hairy branchlets. The leaves are needle-shaped, long and wide with the edges rolled under. The lower surface of the leaves is densely covered with cottony white hairs. The flower heads are arranged in a corymb of 70 to 200, each head wide with five or six

florets This glossary of botanical terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to botany and plants in general. Terms of plant morphology are included here as well as at the more specific Glossary of plant morphology and Glossary o ...

surrounded by overlapping white to greenish involucral bracts in five

whorls A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). Whorls in nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral d ...

. Flowering occurs from January to March and the achenes are about long with a bristly pappus long.

Taxonomy and naming

''Cassinia diminuta'' was first formally described in 2004 by Anthony Edward Orchard in '' Australian Systematic Botany'' from specimens collected in the same year.

Distribution and habitat

This species of ''Cassinia'' grows in mallee and woodland in central Victoria.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15561260 diminuta Asterales of Australia Flora of Victoria (state) Plants described in 2004