Olearia erubescens
Olearia erubescens, commonly known as moth daisy-bush or pink-tip daisy-bush, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is a shrub with stiff, prickly leaves and white "daisy" flowers, growing up to 2 metres high.
Description
Olearia erubescens is a spreading woody shrub to high and wide when growing at lower altitudes in grassland and wooded gullies. It has a gnarled smaller growth habit at higher altitudes to high. The branchlets are densely matted with soft whitish T-shaped hairs. The smooth upper leaf surface is dark green, flat and stiff with a distinctive pale network of veins. The leaves are on a short stalk long, arranged alternately, may be either sparse or crowded and end in a sharp point. The leaves are narrowly oval to oblong about long and wide with small, coarse, irregular teeth or slightly lobed serrations along the margin. The leaf underside is thickly covered with white hairs, occasionally reddish when young. The inflorescence consists of 4-8 white flowers, occasionally a pinkish mauve, about in diameter blooming at the end of branches on a peduncle about long. The flower clusters are borne in leaf axils on previous season shoots. The floret centre is yellow. The cone-shaped bracts are arranged in rows of 3-5 and long and covered in dense silky flat hairs. The dry fruit is one seeded, narrowly cylindrical long and ribbed. Flowering occurs from September to January.Taxonomy and naming
Olearia erubescens was first formally described by Franz Sieber as Aster erubescens but he did not publish the description. In 1826 Curt Sprengel published the description in his book Systema Vegetabilium.Leopold Dippel in 1889 described Olearia erubescens and published the description in Handbuch der Laubholzkunde.
Augustin de Candolle published the description Eurybia erubescens in Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis in 1836 but makes no reference to Sprengels prior description of 1826.
The specific epithet is derived from the Latin meaning "grow red", "redden" or "blush" possibly referring to the new growth that is occasionally a reddish colour.