Olearia tenuifolia
(DC.) Benth.Straggling shrub to c. 1 m high, viscid, with a fruity or 'bubble-gum' odour; branchlets glandular-pubescent. Leaves alternate, subsessile, linear or very narrow-oblanceolate, 15–35 mm long, 1–2.5 mm wide, concolorous, with scattered to mid-dense erect glandular hairs on the upper surface and the midrib beneath; margin recurved to revolute, sometimes sinuate. Capitula 25–50 mm diam., terminal, solitary or few together; peduncles 0.5–5 cm long; involucre cup-shaped, 8–10 mm long; bracts 4–6-seriate, graduating, shortly glandular pubescent. Ray florets 12–18, mauve, purple or blue, ligules 12–20 mm long; disc florets c. 20–30, yellow. Cypsela cylindric, 6-ribbed, c. 4 mm long, sericeous; pappus bristles straw-coloured, 7–9 mm long. Flowers Sep.–Apr.
VRiv, GipP, NIS, EGU, HSF, HNF, VAlp. Also NSW. Rare, apparently confined in Victoria to dry rocky country in the Licola-Valencia Creek area, upper Buchan River valley and Pine Mountain.
Most Victorian populations of this species were previously treated as O. adenophora, while the sole 'genuine' population of O. tenuifolia (from above the Mitchell River at Billy Goat Bend) is now considered a localised endemic species, O. curticoma (Walsh 2014).
Walsh, N.G.; Lander, N.S. (1999). Olearia. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 4, Cornaceae to Asteraceae, pp. 886–912. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
SpinningSynonyms
Walsh, N.G. (2014). Notes on Olearia (Asteraceae: Astereae) in south-east Australia: O. tenuifolia, O. adenophora and description of a new species endemic to eastern Victoria. Muelleria 32: 34–38.
