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Olearia macrodonta Baker

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Olearia macrodonta' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/olearia/olearia-macrodonta/). Accessed 2025-04-27.

Family

  • Asteraceae

Genus

Common Names

  • [

Synonyms

  • O. dentata Hook, f., not Moench

Glossary

alternate
Attached singly along the axis not in pairs or whorls.
apex
(pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
ovate
Egg-shaped; broadest towards the stem.

References

There are no active references in this article.

Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Olearia macrodonta' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/olearia/olearia-macrodonta/). Accessed 2025-04-27.

Olearia macrodonta

Olearia macrodonta in flower Lime Close Oxfordshire June 2019. Image MC DE LAUBARÈDE.

An evergreen shrub up to 20 ft high, or even a small tree in the wild, with bark peeling in long strips; young shoots angled, downy. Leaves alternate, firm and leathery, ovate to narrowly oval, rounded or tapering at the base, pointed at the apex, 2 to 5 in. long, 1 to 2 in. wide, the margins wavy and furnished with coarse sharp teeth, the hollows between them rounded; upper surface dark glossy green, downy only when quite young, lower surface covered with a close, silvery-white felt; leaf-stalk 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. long. Flower-heads produced in one or more branched clusters 3 to 6 in. across, at the termination of the previous season’s growth, each cluster on a silvery-white, downy stalk 3 to 6 in. long. The flower-head is 1⁄2 in. across, with ten or more white ray-florets and a few reddish disk-florets. Bot. Mag., t. 7065.

Native of New Zealand up to 4,000 ft. It is one of the finest olearias, almost hardy if sheltered from cold winds. The leaves are musk-scented when crushed.

Olearia macrodonta

Olearia macrodonta in flower Lime Close Oxfordshire June 2019. Image MC DE LAUBARÈDE.

Olearia macrodonta

The substantial trunk of an old Olearia macrodonta at Leckmelm in the north-western Scottish Highlands; June 2013. Image Owen Johnson.

Olearia macrodonta

Olearia macrodonta in full flower on Mahee Island, Northern Ireland. June 2019. Image John Anderson.

Olearia macrodonta

Olearia macrodonta on Mahee Island, Northern Ireland. June 2019. Image John Anderson.

'Major'

A form with larger leaves and flower-heads. There is an example at Rowallane, Co. Down, 22 ft high and 48 ft across.

Olearia macrodonta 'Major'

Olearia macrodonta 'Major' at Mount Usher, Wicklow, Ireland. 5 March 2022. Image John Anderson.

Olearia macrodonta 'Major'

Olearia macrodonta 'Major' at Mount Usher, Wicklow, Ireland. 5 March 2022. Image John Anderson.

'Minor'

A dwarf, compact form, smaller in all its parts.The status of O. macrodonta is uncertain; it is perhaps of hybrid origin, from O. arborescens crossed with O. ilicifolia. Forms which are said to be hybrids between O. arborescens and O. macrodonta are also in cultivation, as O. ‘Rowallane Hybrids’; they have the toothed leaves of the latter and the hanging flower-heads of the former, but are perhaps no more than variants of the very variable O. arborescens.

Olearia macrodonta 'Minor'

Olearia macrodonta 'Minor' at Inverewe, Wester Ross, UK. 6 August 2015. Image John Anderson.

Olearia macrodonta 'Minor'

'Smaller in all its parts': Olearia macrodonta 'Minor' at Inverewe, Wester Ross, UK. 6 August 2015. Image John Anderson.

O macrodonta × O.

Synonyms
moschata

A plant which appears to be this hybrid has been offered in recent years by Hillier and Sons as ‘O. rani’. It is neither the true O. rani (A. Cunn.) Druce nor the species properly known as O. cheesemanii, which has also been grown as ‘O. rani’. Leaves elliptic, tapered at the base and apex, up to 2 in. long and 1 in. wide, green above, closely white-tomentose beneath, coarsely but rather bluntly toothed and slightly revolute at the margins; stalk up to {1/2} in. long.

O 'Rossii'

A strong-growing shrub of medium size; leaves up to 4 in. long and 1{1/2} in. wide, tapered at the base, often obliquely, more sharply tapered at the apex, at first pilose above, becoming glossy green, persistently yellowish-white tomentose beneath, coarsely toothed at the margins.A hybrid which arose spontaneously in the garden of Sir John Ross of Bladensburg at Rostrevor, Co. Down. It is supposed to be O. macrodonta crossed with O. argophylla, but this parentage is in need of confirmation.

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