Olearia megalophylla

Location & distribution maps

Common name:         Large-leaf Daisy Bush

Conservation status: ...

Etymology:   

• Is named after Johann Gottfried Olearius, a 17th-century German scholar and author of Specimen Florae Hallensis

• The specific epithet (megalophylla) means "large-leaved"

Flowers

• The heads or daisy-like "flowers" are arranged in corymbs on the ends of branchlets and are 20–35 mm in diameter on a peduncle 20–60 mm long

• Each head has five to nine white ray florets, the ligule 8–14 mm long, surrounding nine to fourteen yellow disc florets

• Flowering occurs from December to March

Fruit:                            

• The fruit is a more or less glabrous achene, the pappus with 51 to 80 bristles in two rows

Leaves:         

• Its leaves are egg-shaped to elliptic, 20–130 mm long and 6–35 mm wide on a petiole up to 30 mm long

• The upper surface of the leaves is dark green and glabrous

• The lower surface is densely covered with hairs similar to those on the branchlets

Stem & branches: 

• Its branchlets covered with felt-like, Y-shaped hairs

Roots:         

Habit:        

• A spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of up to 2 m

Habitat:   

• Forest and woodland on the slopes and tablelands 

Distribution:                  

• South from near Orange NSW to near Lake Mountain in eastern Victoria

Additional notes:    

• Taxonomy

  • This daisy bush was first formally described in 1860 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name Eurybia megalophylla in Papers and Prodeedings of the Royal Society of van Dieman's Land

  • In 1867, George Bentham changed the name to Olearia megalophylla in Flora Australiensis

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olearia_megalophylla (2024)