Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, near Armidale, NSW

Shrub. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, near Armidale, NSW

Common Name

Cough Bush, Dead Finish, Curry Bush, Rosemary Bush

Family

Asteraceae

Notes

Shrub to 3m tall with a curry-like or unpleasant odour. Leaves alternating up the stems, the bases continuing down the stems, linear, 1-5cm long, 1mm wide, upper surface shiny, hairless, lower surface sticky hairy, margins rolled down, almost concealing the lower surface, tips blunt to pointed. Flower heads small (less than 3mm across), white to cream, with 0 petals, cylindrical to bell-shaped, in open groups of many flowers at the ends of the stems.

Differs from Cassinia arcuata in that the stems are obviously white woolly, and that the tips of the bracts on the flower heads are opaque.

Description (page 688) and photo (page 689) in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales

PlantNET description:    http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Cassinia~laevis