Olearia frostii, commonly known as Bogong daisy-bush,
Description
Olearia frostii is a greyish, often straggling shrub that typically grows to a height of up to , its branchlets densely covered with star-shaped hairs. Its leaves are arranged alternately along the branchlets, more or less sessile, narrowly egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide. The upper surface of the leaves is covered with greyish, star-shaped hairs and the lower surface densely covered with woolly, star-shaped hairs. The heads or daisy-like
Pseudanthium are arranged singly on the ends of a few branches, and are in diameter on a peduncle mostly long with three to five rows of bracts at the base. Each head has 30 to 80 mauve to pink ray florets, the
long, surrounding 40 to 100 yellow disc florets. Flowering occurs from January to March and the fruit is a
achene, the pappus long.
Taxonomy
Bogong daisy-bush was first formally described in 1889 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name
Aster frostii in
The Victorian Naturalist from specimens collect on "
Mount Hotham, at an elevation of about ".
In 1956, James Hamlyn Willis changed the name to
Olearia frostii in the journal
Muelleria.
Distribution and habitat
Olearia frostii grows in heath, grassland and woodland on the Bogong High Plains and nearby peaks in north-eastern Victoria.
