Cassinia diminuta


Cassinia diminuta, commonly known as dwarf cassinia, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae and is endemic to Victoria in Australia. It is a small, erect, aromatic shrub with spreading, needle-shaped leaves that are covered with cottony hair on the underside, and corymbs of up to two hundred heads of flowers arranged in corymbs.

Description

Cassinia diminuta is an erect, aromatic shrub that typically grows to a height of with densely-hairy branchlets. The leaves are needle-shaped, long and wide with the edges rolled under. The lower surface of the leaves is densely covered with cottony white hairs. The flower heads are arranged in a corymb of 70 to 200, each head wide with five or six Glossary of [botanical terms#floret|florets] surrounded by overlapping white to greenish involucral bracts in five whorls. Flowering occurs from January to March and the achenes are about long with a bristly pappus long.

Taxonomy and naming

Cassinia diminuta was first formally described in 2004 by Anthony Edward Orchard in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected in the same year.

Distribution and habitat

This species of Cassinia grows in Mallee [Woodlands and Shrublands|mallee] and woodland in central Victoria.