''Olearia adenolasia'', commonly known as woolly-glandular daisy-bush, is a species of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

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 ...

. It is a small upright shrub with sticky leaves and blue-purple or white daisy flowers.

Description

''Olearia adenolasia'' is a fragrant, sticky, erect shrub to high with woody stems. Branches are glandular and have soft short silky hairs. The leaves are sessile, thickly arranged, narrow widening toward the tip, linear or broader at the base about long and wide. The dark green upper surface of leaves has a silky texture with numerous short thickly matted glandular hairs. The leaf underside has non-glandular soft cream hairs, an obscure mid-vein and rolled edges. The single floret consists of 9-15 small flowers at the apex of a branch on a short stalk. The

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s prior to the flower opening are bell-shaped and long. The white to blue-purple petals are narrow, widening at the tip and about long ending in a sharp point. The individual flowers have a yellow centre. The dry fruit are elliptical about long with 4-5 longitudinal ridges and contains a single seed. Flowers from August to November.

Taxonomy and naming

This daisy bush was first formally described in 1865 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name ''Aster adenolasius'' in '' Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae''. In 1867

George Bentham George Bentham (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884) was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studi ...

formalised the name ''Olearia adenolasia'' and the description was published in ''

Flora Australiensis ''Flora Australiensis: a description of the plants of the Australian Territory'', more commonly referred to as ''Flora Australiensis'', and also known by its standard abbreviation ''Fl. Austral.'', is a seven-volume flora of Australia published be ...

''. 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 ...

''(adenolasia)'' 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 ...

words ''aden'' meaning "gland" and ''lasios'' meaning "hairy", "woolly" or "shaggy".

Distribution and habitat

Woolly-glandular daisy-bush grows in Western Australia near Coolgardie, Esperance plains, Kondinin and

Ravensthorpe Ravensthorpe may refer to any of the following places. England *Ravensthorpe, Dewsbury in West Yorkshire **Ravensthorpe railway station, Dewsbury *Ravensthorpe, Northamptonshire *Ravensthorpe, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire *Ravensthorpe, an histor ...

in sandy loam, sand over

laterite Laterite is both a soil and a rock type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by ...

and on sand hills.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15587401 Eudicots of Western Australia adenolasia Taxa named by Ferdinand von Mueller Taxa named by George Bentham