All bear the familiar daisy-like composite flowerheads in white, pink, mauve or purple.

The centre of the bi-sexual floret is disc shaped and may be white, yellowish or purplish, generally with 5 lobes.

The fruit are dry slightly compressed, one-seeded, narrow-elliptic or egg-shaped with longitudinal ridges and smooth or with sparse hairs.

[3][4][5] The genus Olearia was first described in 1802 by Conrad Moench in Supplementum ad Methodum Plantas and is named after Johann Gottfried Olearius, a 17th-century German scholar and author of Specimen Florae Hallensis.

Among these, the following have been given the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:-[12] They are generally hardy down to −10 °C (14 °F), but require a sheltered spot in full sun.