''Chrysocephalum pterochaetum'', known by the

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrast ...

perennial sunray is a

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

herb In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal ...

native to

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a n ...

and desert areas of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. A member of the

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 ...

, the daisy family. A small plant, 15 to 40 cm high with many stems. Leaves are linear to linear

oblanceolate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

in shape, 10 to 30 mm long, 1 to 1.5 mm wide. Leaf surfaces are rough and glandular, and may have felty white hairs. Yellow flowers mostly form throughout the year, but often seen from June to October. Originally collected in 1851 near

Kanyaka, South Australia Kanyaka is a rural locality in the Far North (South Australia), Far North region of South Australia, situated in the Flinders Ranges Council. Kanyaka Station, a prominent pastoral holding in the region, was taken up in 1852 by Hugh Proby. It b ...

. The habitat of this plant includes sand among rocks, in or near dry creek beds, exposed rocky hill slopes and sandy

gibber A desert pavement, also called reg (in the western Sahara), serir (eastern Sahara), gibber (in Australia), or saï (central Asia) is a desert surface covered with closely packed, interlocking angular or rounded rock fragments of pebble and cobbl ...

. 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 ...

''pterochaetum'' is derived from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

language, ''ptero'' (winged) and ''chaetum'' (hair).

References

Gnaphalieae Asterales of Australia Flora of New South Wales Flora of South Australia Flora of Queensland Flora of Western Australia Flora of the Northern Territory Plants described in 1853 {{Gnaphalieae-stub