Ozothamnus stirlingii, commonly known as Ovens everlasting,[1] is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae and grows in New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. It has globose-shaped white flower heads and sticky leaves.
Ozothamnus stirlingii is a shrub to high with covered in short, matted hairs. The leaves are elliptic to lance-shaped, long, wide, upper surface dark green, smooth and sticky. The lower surface is light green or white, sticky, covered with a dense covering of short, matted hairs and on a petiole long. The flower head is a corymbose arrangement, in diameter, almost globe-shaped, white, capitula long and wide and containing in excess of 70 florets. The outer bracts slightly reflexed, hard, yellowish, oval-shaped with woolly edges, inner bracts with a white lamina. Flowering occurs from November to February and the fruit is a cypsela, egg-shaped and covered with bristles about long.[1] [2] [3]
The species was described in 1889 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name Helichrysum stirlingii.[4] In 1991 Arne A. Anderberg changed the name to Ozothamnus stirlingii and the description was published in Opera Botanica.[5] The specific epithet (stirlingii) was in honour of Edward Charles Stirling.[6]
Ovens everlasting grows at higher altitudes in montane forests and subalpine woodland in New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory.[1] [2] [3]