''Ozothamnus stirlingii'', commonly known as Ovens everlasting, is a 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 grows in New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. It has globose-shaped white flower heads and sticky leaves.

Description

''Ozothamnus stirlingii'' is a shrub to high with covered in short, matted hairs. The leaves are elliptic to lance-shaped, long, wide, upper surface dark green, smooth and sticky. The lower surface is light green or white, sticky, covered with a dense covering of short, matted hairs and on a petiole long. The flower head is a corymbose arrangement, in diameter, almost globe-shaped, white, capitula long and wide and containing in excess of 70 florets. The outer

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 slightly reflexed, hard, yellowish, oval-shaped with woolly edges, inner bracts with a white lamina. Flowering occurs from November to February and the fruit is a cypsela, egg-shaped and covered with bristles about long.

Taxonomy and naming

The species was described in 1889 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 ''Helichrysum stirlingii''. In 1991 Arne A. Anderberg changed the name to ''Ozothamnus stirlingii'' and the description was published in ''Opera Botanica''. 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 ...

(''stirlingii'') was in honour of

Edward Charles Stirling Sir Edward Charles Stirling (8 September 1848 – 20 March 1919) was an Australian anthropology, anthropologist and the first professor of physiology at the University of Adelaide. Early life Stirling was born at "The Lodge" Strathalbyn, Sout ...

Distribution and habitat

Ovens everlasting grows at higher altitudes in montane forests and subalpine woodland in New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15580478 stirlingii Asterales of Australia Flora of New South Wales Flora of Victoria (state) Flora of the Australian Capital Territory