Spyridium cinereum, commonly known as tiny spiridium,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Rhamnaceae and is endemic to south-eastern continental Australia. It is a low-lying shrub with heart-shaped leaves, the narrower end towards the base, and heads of whitish, shaggy-hairy flowers with brown bracts at the base of the heads.
Spyridium cinereum is a low-lying shrub or subshrub that typically grows to a height of . The leaves are heart-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide with a small point in the centre of the notch. Both surfaces of the leaves are woolly-hairy, especially the upper surface, and the edges of the leaves are rolled under. The heads of flowers are arranged on the ends of branches, each with a leaf and several brown bracts at the base, the head in flattish umbels about in diameter. The sepals are about long, the petals whitish, long and shaggy-hairy on the outside. Flowering occurs from October to January and the fruit is a capsule about long.[2] [3]
Spyridium cinereum was first formally described in 1957 by Norman Arthur Wakefield in The Victorian Naturalist of specimens he collected near Mallacoota aerodrome.[4] The specific epithet (cinereum) means "ash-coloured".[5]
Spyridium cinereum grows in coastal heath and low scrub in disjunct populations near Nadgee in the far south-east of New South Wales, far north-eastern Victoria and in the north-east Grampians.