Olearia argophylla
Olearia argophylla, commonly known as musk daisy-bush, native musk or silver shrub, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae and is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It is a shrub or tree with silvery branchlets, egg-shaped to elliptic leaves, and white and yellow, daisy-like inflorescences.
Description
Olearia argophylla is a shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of up to about, and has fissured to slightly stringy or flaky bark. Its branchlets are densely covered with fine, silvery or pale brown hairs pressed against the surface. The leaves are arranged alternately, egg-shaped to broadly elliptic, mostly long and wide on a petiole up to long, and have toothed edges. The upper surface of the leaves is glabrous and the lower surface covered with minute, woolly, white or silvery hairs.The heads are wide and arranged in corymbs on the ends of branchlets, each corymb on a peduncle up to long. Each head or daisy-like "flower" has three to eight white ray florets, the petal-like ligule long, surrounding three to eight yellow disc florets. Flowering mainly occurs from September to February and the fruit is a straw-coloured or pinkish achene long, the pappus with 26–43 bristles about long.
Taxonomy
Musk daisy-bush was first formally described in 1806 by Jacques Labillardière who gave it the name Aster argophyllus in his book Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen. In 1867, George Bentham changed the name to Olearia argophylla in Flora Australiensis.In 1825, Henri Cassini changed Labillardière's name Aster argophyllus to Eurybia argophylla in Frédéric Cuvier's Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles but this name is considered a synonym by the Australian Plant Census.