Calocephalus platycephalus

Calocephalus platycephalus commonly known as western beauty-heads or yellow top, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is an upright to sprawling herb with white hairy foliage and yellow ball-shaped flower heads and is endemic to Australia.

Description
Calocephalus platycephalus is a herb with upright to ascending, whitish woolly to hairy branches and about 6-45 cm high. The leaves are arranged alternately, linear to lance-shaped, mostly 5-30 mm long, 1-2 mm wide, more or less smooth to hairy, apex blunt to occasionally ending in a short triangular point in the upper leaves. The flower heads are yellow, broadly rounded to globe-shaped and 17-22 bracts. Flowering occurs mainly from spring to summer and the fruit is a bristly achene 0.5-0.65 mm long.

Taxonomy and naming
This species was described in 1867 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name Pachysurus platycephalus. In 1867 George Bentham changed the name to Calocephalus platycephalus and the description was published in Flora Australiensis. The specific epithet (platycephalus) means "headed".

Distribution and habitat
Western beauty-heads grows in sandy and sometimes semi-salines locations in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.