Australian tauhinu

Cassinia aculeata is an erect, openly branched evergreen shrub of the Asteraceae family typically 1-3 m tall, with slender greyish woody stems and densely white-tomentose young shoots that give the foliage a hoary cast. The leaves are alternate, very narrow and almost needle-like, linear, 5-20 mm long and 0.5-2 mm wide, with strongly revolute margins concealing the white-woolly lower surface, an acute prickly-pointed tip and a sessile base; the dark green upper surface bears scattered glandular hairs and a sticky aromatic exudate when crushed. The plant flowers profusely from late spring through summer, bearing dense flat-topped to rounded terminal corymbs 4-10 cm across composed of very numerous small flower heads. Each head is narrowly cylindrical, 3-5 mm long, with an involucre of 4-6 papery, white to pinkish or pale brown imbricate bracts that are themselves the most conspicuous floral feature; within each head are usually only 2-4 tiny tubular hermaphrodite florets with creamy corollas and protruding styles. The fruit is a minute brownish ribbed cypsela about 1 mm long, crowned by a few barbellate pappus bristles. Native to south-eastern Australia from Queensland to Tasmania, in open eucalypt forest, woodland margins, post-fire regeneration and disturbed roadsides.