Olearia insignis Hook. f.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Olearia insignis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/olearia/olearia-insignis/). Accessed 2024-03-19.

Genus

Synonyms

  • Pachystegia insignis (Hook. f.) Cheesem.

Glossary

apex
(pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
entire
With an unbroken margin.
glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
involucre
A ring of bracts surrounding an inflorescence.
linear
Strap-shaped.
midrib
midveinCentral and principal vein in a leaf.

References

There are no active references in this article.

Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Olearia insignis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/olearia/olearia-insignis/). Accessed 2024-03-19.

A low, spreading, evergreen shrub, described as growing 6 ft high in the wild; young shoots thick and, like the undersurface of the leaves, leaf-stalks and flower-stalks, clothed with a white or pale brown woolly felt. Leaves crowded at the ends of the shoots, very stout and leathery, entire, oval or obovate, tapered, rounded, or slightly heart-shaped at the base, blunt at the apex, 3 to 7 in. long, about half as wide, upper surface at first woolly, ultimately dark glossy green and glabrous except on the midrib and margins; stalk stout, 12 to 2 in. long. Flower-heads produced from the end of the shoot or in the terminal leaf-axils; each solitary on a slender stalk 4 to 8 in. long. Each flower-head is 112 to 212 in. wide; the ray-florets very numerous in two or more rows, white, linear, toothed at the end, 12 in. long. Disk-florets very crowded, forming a yellow centre to the flower-head 114 in. wide. Outer scales small, overlapping, woolly, arranged in many rows. Bot. Mag., t. 7034.

Native of New Zealand on the South Island up to 4,000 ft altitude; discovered by Capt. Rough about 1850. A very handsome species, distinct from most olearias by reason of its large leaves; its large, white and yellow, long-stalked flower-heads; and large egg-shaped involucre of very numerous scales beneath the flower-head. As many as five heads may be borne on one shoot and they open in summer. It is not really happy out-of-doors at Kew although it survives at the foot of a warm wall. It is well worth cultivation wherever it can be grown. Blooms about August.


O megalophylla (F. v. Muell.) F. v. Muell. ex Benth.

Synonyms
Eurybia megalophylla F. v. Muell

A shrub to 3 ft high; leaves opposite, elliptic to oblong, leathery, reticulated above, grey- or brown-felted beneath, 2 to 4 in. long, {1/2} to 2{3/4} in. wide. Flower-heads rather large and numerous in terminal corymbs; ray-florets seven to twelve, white. Bot. Mag., n.s., t. 665.A native of Victoria and New South Wales. It is grown on a wall at Wakehurst Place, Sussex, but is still untested for hardiness.


var. minor Cheesem

A dwarf plant, with leaves up to 4 in. long and smaller flower-heads on more slender peduncles.