Cassinia decipiens

Cassinia decipiens
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Eudicots
Clade:	Asterids
Order:	Asterales
Family:	Asteraceae
Genus:	Cassinia
Species:	C. decipiens
Binomial name
Cassinia decipiens Orchard

Cassinia decipiens is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae and is endemic central New South Wales, Australia. It is a shrub with woolly-hairy young twigs, spreading, cylindrical leaves, and heads of creamy-brown to yellowish flowers arranged in a rounded cyme.

Description

Cassinia decipiens is a shrub that typically grows to a height of 1.5–1.9 m (4 ft 11 in – 6 ft 3 in) and has woolly-hairy young twigs and flaky, reddish-brown bark on older branches. The leaves spread at 90° to the stem and are cylindrical 10–20 mm (0.39–0.79 in) long and about 1 mm (0.039 in) wide with the edges rolled under. The upper surface of the leaves is glossy dark green and the lower surface is hidden by the rolled edges. The flower heads are about 3.0–3.5 mm (0.12–0.14 in) long, each with creamy-brown to yellowish florets surrounded by overlapping, papery involucral bracts. The heads are arranged in a rounded cyme of several hundred florets. The achenes are pale brown, about 0.8 mm (0.031 in) long with a pappus of eighteen to twenty-three barbed bristles.

Taxonomy and naming

Cassinia decipiens was first formally described in 2004 by Anthony Edward Orchard in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens he collected near Rylstone in 2004.

Distribution and habitat

This species of Cassinia grows in forest and woodland in a small area between to Goulburn River and Rylstone on the Central Western Slopes of New South Wales.