''Ozothamnus tesselatus'', commonly known as tesselate 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 ...

. It is a small shrub with woolly branches and globular heads of whitish to straw-coloured flowers.

Description

''Ozothamnus tesselatus'' is a small, upright shrub to high with stems densely covered in short, matted hairs. The leaves are oblong to narrow-linear, stiff, long, less than wide, apex curved backward, base decurrent along the stem , margins rolled under. The leaf upper surface is green, sticky, shiny, rarely roughly textured, dotted with glands and the lower surface light coloured and woolly. The flower heads are borne at the end of branches in dense, globular

corymbs Corymb is a botanical term for an inflorescence with the flowers growing in such a fashion that the outermost are borne on longer pedicels than the inner, bringing all flowers up to a common level. A corymb has a flattish top with a superficial re ...

wide, individual flowers about long and about in diameter,

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 egg-shaped, golden and translucent. Flowering occurs in spring and the fruit is a hairy

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 ...

Taxonomy and naming

This ozothamnus was described in 1896 by

Joseph Maiden Joseph Henry Maiden (25 April 1859 – 16 November 1925) was a botanist who made a major contribution to knowledge of the Australian flora, especially the genus ''Eucalyptus''. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation when citing ...

and Richard Thomas Baker and given the name ''Helichrysum tesselatum''. In 1991 Arne A. Anderberg changed the name to ''Ozothamnus tesselatus'' and the description was published in ''Opera Botanica''.

Distribution and habitat

Tesselate everlasting has a restricted distribution, growing in woodland north of

Rylstone Rylstone is a village and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated very near to Cracoe and about 6 miles south west of Grassington. The population of the civil parish as of the 2011 census was 160. Ryls ...

References

tesselatus Asterales of Australia Flora of New South Wales Taxa named by Joseph Maiden Taxa named by Richard Thomas Baker Plants described in 1896 {{Australia-asterid-stub