Cassinia thinicola

Cassinia thinicola commonly known as sand everlasting, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae and is endemic to coastal New South Wales. It is a compact shrub with hairy young stems, needle-shaped to slightly flattened leaves, and corymbs of up to 150 flower heads.

Description

Cassinia thinicola is an erect, many-branched shrub that typically grows to a height of with its young stems covered with cottony and glandular hairs. The leaves are needle-shaped to slightly flattened, long and about wide. The upper surface of the leaves is more or less glabrous, the edges are rolled under and the lower surface is densely woolly-hairy. The flower heads are about long with five to seven cream-coloured Glossary of [botanical terms#floret|florets] surrounded by papery involucral bracts in four or five whorls. Between 100 and 150 heads are arranged in rounded corymbs. Flowering occurs in March and the achenes are about long with a pappus of about 23 bristles about long.

Taxonomy and naming

Cassinia thinicola was first formally described in 2004 by Anthony [Edward Orchard] in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected at Caves Beach, [New South Wales|Caves Beach] in 2004. The specific epithet means "dune-inhabiting".

Distribution

Cassinia thinicola grows on old sand dunes and cliffs near the coast between Berowra and Forster in New South Wales.