Olearia subspicata

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Olearia subspicata, the spiked daisy bush or shrubby daisy-bush, is a flowering plant in the daisy family (Asteraceae) native to continental Australia. It is an erect shrub 0.5–3 m tall with woody stems. Its leaves are narrow and small (5–30 mm long, 1–3 mm wide), roll-edged, with a smooth upper surface and a woolly underside. The plant bears single or clustered white and yellow daisy-like flower heads at branch ends or leaf axils, about 14–20 mm across. Each head has a few white ray florets (usually 2–4) around 3–10 yellow disc florets. Flowering time varies across its range. The fruit is an achene about 1.5–2 mm long with a pappus 5–8 mm long made of 40–50 white to straw-coloured bristles. The species was first described in 1845 as Eurybia subspicata by Hooker and renamed Olearia subspicata by Bentham in 1867. The name subspicata means “almost spicate.” Spiked daisy bush grows in shrubland, mallee and mulga habitats and is widespread from Western Australia and South Australia through southern Northern Territory, western New South Wales, Queensland to the far north-west of Victoria.