Plants of
South Australia
Cassinia complanata
Asteraceae
Sticky Cassinia
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Adelaide
Arkaroola
Ceduna
Coober Pedy
Hawker
Innamincka
Marla
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Oodnadatta
Renmark
Wudinna
Keith
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Botanical art

Kath Alcock paintings: 2

Common names

Sticky Cassinia

Etymology

Cassinia named after Alexandre-Henri Gabriel de Cassini (1782-1832), a French botanist who published extensively on the Compositae family. Complanata from the Latin 'complano', meaning levelled or flattened, referring to the flattened flower clusters.

Distribution and status

Found southern South Australia from the Flinders Ranges to the upper South-east growing in mallee and woodland on sandy soils. Also found in Victoria. Native. Common in South Australia. Common in Victoria.
Herbarium regions: Flinders Ranges, Eyre Peninsula, Northern Lofty, Murray, Yorke Peninsula, Southern Lofty, Kangaroo Island, South Eastern, Green Adelaide
AVH map: SA distribution map (external link)

Plant description

Erect or semi- erect shrub to 2 m high; branchlets sticky with moderately dense, spreading hairs. Leaves semi-erect to spreading, sessile, narrowly linear to terete, to 50 mm long and 1 mm wide, glabrous or with sparse to moderately dense short hairs above, dense white cottony hairs matted with yellowish resin beneath, apex tapering to an acute point, margins revolute to midrib. Inflorescences dense flattened clusters at end of stems, with white, greenish based flowers. Flowering between January and February. Fruits are light cream, dense round daisy-head. Seeds are creamy-brown cylindrical seed to 1.1 mm long and 0.4 mm wide; smooth with long white pappus at one end. Seed embryo type is spatulate.

Seed collection and propagation

Collect seeds between March and May. Collect heads that are matured, cream and contain brown seeds. Place the heads in a tray for one to two week to dry. Then rub the heads gently with your hands to dislodge the seeds. Use a sieve to separate any unwanted material. Viable seeds will be small and brown. Store the seeds with a desiccant such as dried silica beads or dry rice, in an air tight container in a cool and dry place. Seeds are non-dormant, viable seed should germinate readily.

Seeds stored:
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LocationNo. of seeds
(weight grams)
Number
of plants
Date
collected
Collection number
Collection location
Date
stored
% ViabilityStorage
temperature
BGA 
MSB
531,800 (81.9 g)
531,800 (81.9 g)
3728-Apr-2004DJD7
Southern Lofty
23-Mar-2006 -18°C
BGA180,000 (13.51 g)924-Apr-2012KHB668
Southern Lofty
1-Jan-201630%-18°C
Location: BGA — the seeds are stored at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, MSB — the seeds are stored at the Millennium Seed Bank, Kew, England.
Number of plants: This is the number of plants from which the seeds were collected.
Collection location: The Herbarium of South Australia's region name.
% Viability: Percentage of filled healthy seeds determined by a cut test or x-ray.
Germination table:
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