Branches are held erect, and are covered in hairs that lie close along the stem.

[4][5] The earliest known botanical specimens of A. terminalis were collected by Scottish botanist Robert Brown at Port Lincoln, South Australia in the first few days of March 1802.

plumosa,[7] and also assigned some Western Australia specimens collected by Ludwig Preiss to A. terminalis.

Fourteen years later, George Bentham published a revision of the genus in Volume 5 of his landmark Flora Australiensis.

plumosa, and suggested, correctly, that Meissner had erred in assigning Preiss's Western Australian specimens to A. terminalis.

[4] In 1978 Ernest Charles Nelson refined Bentham's arrangement by dividing A. sect.

plumosa on the grounds that the species is quite variable, particularly when it comes to the hairy covering of the leaves, this being the main characteristic on which Meissner had distinguished the variety.

Pollen of A. terminalis was recovered from the facial feathers of individuals of all of these species except Anthochaera chrysoptera, and also from Melithreptus brevirostris (brown-headed honeyeater).