Flowers. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, SW of Wagga Wagga, NSW

Flower and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Packsaddle, north of Broken Hill, NSW

Plant. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, SW of Wagga Wagga, NSW

Common Name

Woolly Plover-daisy, Woolly Ixiolaena

Family

Asteraceae

Notes

Aromatic perennial forb to 70cm tall, woody towards the base. Leaves alternating up the stems, 1-3cm long, 2-4mm wide, flat, woolly and sticky, with abruptly pointed tips. Flowers yellow, with 0 petals. Flower heads bell-shaped to cylindrical, borne singly at the ends of the stems. Presumed extinct Vic.

Differs from Leiocarpa leptolepis and Leiocarpa websteri in that the flower heads are often cylindrical, and the bracts on the flower head are woolly-cobwebby with underlying glandular hairs.

Description and photo (as Ixiolaena tomentosa) in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 703

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

Key to the species of Leiocarpa and discussion of the differences between the species in Wilson, P.G. (2001) Leiocarpa, a new Australian genus of the Asteraceae tribe Gnaphalieae. Nuytsia 13(3): pages 598-599