''Cassinia heleniae'' is a species of flowering plant in the family

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

and is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to a small area in northern New South Wales. It is a shrub with a few sticky stems, sticky needle-shaped leaves and flower heads arranged in a rounded to flat-topped cyme.

Description

''Cassinia heleniae'' is a shrub that typically grows to a height of with its few stems sticky from its glandular hairs. The leaves are also sticky, cylindrical, long and wide. The lower surface of the leaves is densely covered with cottony hairs. The flower heads are arranged in round to flat-topped cymes, each head with five to seven white

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 papery involucral bracts. The achenes are olive brown with a bristly pappus of 19 to 25 bristles.

Taxonomy and naming

''Cassinia heleniae'' was first formally described in 2005 by Anthony Edward Orchard in '' Australian Systematic Botany'' from specimens he collected in Torrington State Park in 2004. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

(''heleniae'') honours Helen Thompson of the Australian Biological Resources Study.

Distribution and habitat

This species of ''Cassinia'' is only known from the area around Torrington where it grows in forest in soils derived from granite.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q93140283 heleniae Asterales of Australia Flora of New South Wales Plants described in 2005