''Olearia picridifolia'', commonly known as rasp scrub-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

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 southern continental Australia. It is a low, spreading shrub with narrowly egg-shaped or narrowly elliptic leaves, and blue, mauve or white and yellow, daisy-like

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 ...

Description

''Olearia picridifolia'' is a spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of up to about , its branchlets and leaves covered with short, stiff hairs pressed against the surface. The leaves are narrowly elliptic or narrowly egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long, wide and more or less

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 ...

. The heads or daisy-like "flowers" are arranged singly or in small groups, on the ends of the branches or in leaf axils on a peduncle long, and are in diameter on a hemispherical involucre at the base. Each head has 20 to 30 white, blue, mauve or white ray

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 ...

, the

ligule A ligule (from "strap", variant of ''lingula'', from ''lingua'' "tongue") is a thin outgrowth at the junction of leaf and leafstalk of many grasses (Poaceae) and sedges. A ligule is also a strap-shaped extension of the corolla, such as that of a ...

long, surrounding 40 to 80 yellow disc florets. Flowering occurs from July to November and the fruit is a glabrous

achene An achene (; ), also sometimes called akene and occasionally achenium or achenocarp, is a type of simple dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. Achenes are monocarpellate (formed from one carpel) and indehiscent (they do not ope ...

long, the pappus long with 25 to 40 bristles.

Taxonomy

This daisy was first formally described in 1853 by

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (german: Müller; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Vict ...

who gave it the name ''Eurybia picridifolia'' in ''Linnaea: ein Journal für die Botanik in ihrem ganzen Umfange, oder Beiträge zur Pflanzenkunde'', based on plant specimens that he collected in a rocky valley near Arkaba in South Australia. In 1867 George Bentham changed the name to ''Olearia picridifolia'' in '' Flora Australiensis''. 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 ...

(''picridifolia'') means "''

Picris ''Picris'' (oxtongues) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae described as a genus by Linnaeus in 1753. ''Picris'' species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species, such as the grass moth '' Diasemia ret ...

''-leaved".

Distribution and habitat

Rasp scrub-daisy grows in mallee and heath in scattered locations in the south of Western Australia, the south-east of South Australia, and in scattered locations in north-western Victoria.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15589910 Taxa named by Ferdinand von Mueller Plants described in 1853 Flora of Western Australia picridifolia