Cassinia theresae

Cassinia theresae is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae and is endemic to central New South Wales. It is an erect shrub with hairy young stems, needle-shaped leaves with flared bases, and corymbs of up to fifty flower heads.

Description

Cassinia theresae is an erect shrub that typically grows to a height of with its young stems greenish but covered with cottony and glandular hairs. The leaves are needle-shaped but with a flared base, long and wide. The upper surface of the leaves is densely scaly, the edges are rolled under and the lower surface is densely covered with white hairs. The flower heads are long, each head with eight to fifteen cream-coloured Glossary of [botanical terms#floret|florets] surrounded by papery involucral bracts in five whorls. Between ten and fifty heads are arranged in corymbs in diameter. Flowering occurs from January to July and the achenes are long with a pappus of thirteen to twenty-four bristles.

Taxonomy and naming

Cassinia theresae was first formally described in 2004 by Anthony Edward Orchard in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected between Tottenham, [New South Wales|Tottenham] and Tullamore in 2004.

Distribution

Cassinia theresae grows in woodland on plains in south-central New South Wales.