Brachyscome ciliaris, commonly known as Variable Daisy, is a small bushy perennial herb with a prominent flower, which occurs throughout most of temperate Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

Description

It grows as a bushy perennial herb up to 45 centimetre in height. Flowers range from white to purple.

Taxonomy

This species was first collected by Jacques Labillardière

Jacques Labillardière

Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardière was a French naturalist noted for his descriptions of the flora of Australia. Labillardière was a member of a voyage in search of the La Pérouse expedition...

 and published in his 1806 Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen

Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen

Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen is a two volume work describing the flora of Australia. The author was the French botanist Jacques Labillardière, who visited the region in 1792 with the d'Entrecasteaux expedition...

under the name Bellis ciliaris. In 1832 Christian Friedrich Lessing

Christian Friedrich Lessing

Christian Friedrich Lessing was a German botanist who was a native of Groß Wartenberg, Niederschlesien. He was a brother to painter Carl Friedrich Lessing , and a grandnephew of poet Gotthold Ephraim Lessing ....

 transferred it into Brachyscome

Brachyscome

Brachyscome is a genus of around 70 species of mostly annual and perennial herbs and a few subshrubs in the daisy family Asteraceae. 65 of these are endemic to Australia, the remainder being found in New Zealand and New Guinea...

, and the name has been Brachyscome ciliaris ever since. Because it is such a variable species, specimens have often been referred to new species, and hence this species has many taxonomic synonyms, among them: Brachyscome drummondii Walp., Brachyscome ciliaris var. brachyglossa Gauba, Brachyscome dimorphocarpa G.L.R.Davis, Brachyscome billardierei Benth. and Brachyscome ciliaris var. lanuginosa (Steetz) Benth..

Three varieties are recognised:

• B. ciliaris var. ciliaris
• B. ciliaris var. lanuginosa
• B. ciliaris var. subintegrifolia

Distribution and habitat

Geographically speaking, it is very widely distributed, occurring in every Australian state. It is somewhat restricted in terms of habitat, however, favouring red earths and grey sands over limestone or clay, in disturbed areas and on the margins of salt pans.