''Ixodia achillaeoides'', commonly known as mountain daisy, 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 found in South Australia and Victoria. It is a small shrub with sticky, smooth branchlets and small white flowers in spring and summer.

Description

''Ixodia achillaeoides'' is a small understory shrub up to high, stems smooth, sticky and branched. The leaves are variable from linear to egg-shaped, sticky, long,

decurrent ''Decurrent'' (sometimes decurring) is a term used in botany and mycology to describe plant or fungal parts that extend downward. In botany, the term is most often applied to leaf blades that partly wrap or have wings around the stem or petio ...

, dark green on upper surface, paler on the underside and a prominent mid-vein. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

is an urn-shaped to oval-shaped cluster of 3-80 white flowers with yellow centres at the end of stems. Individual flowers long and in diameter,

sessile Sessility, or sessile, may refer to: * Sessility (motility), organisms which are not able to move about * Sessility (botany), flowers or leaves that grow directly from the stem or peduncle of a plant * Sessility (medicine), tumors and polyps that ...

or on a short peduncle. The fruit is a cypsela long and covered with soft hairs. Flowering mostly occurs in spring and summer.

Taxonomy and naming

''Ixodia achillaeoides'' was first formally described in 1812 by Robert Brown and the description was published in ''

Hortus Kewensis ''Hortus Kewensis, or a Catalogue of the Plants Cultivated in the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew'' by William Aiton was a 1789 catalogue of all the plant species then in cultivation at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is ...

''. 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 ...

(''achilleoides'') refers to the similarity of the

to those of plants in the genus ''

Achillea ''Achillea'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, known colloquially as yarrows. The plants typically have frilly leaves. The common name "yarrow" usually refers to '' A. millefolium''. The genus was named after the Gre ...

''.

Distribution and habitat

This species has a scattered distribution in Victoria. A widespread species in South Australia, occurring in woodland, scrubland and forest.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q49207597 Gnaphalieae Flora of Victoria (state) Plants described in 1812 Taxa named by Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773)