What is this plant ?

[Rusty]

Hey guy's !
I'm Rusty , I live on the south east coast of N.S.W. I must admit a recent fascination with aussie bush foods , particularly medicinal plants etc . I do a lot of hiking and keep my eye's open to see what's been eaten in the bush .
I was out this morning and noticed handfull's of leaves on the ground in 4 seperate piles . In the attached photo you can see the leaf of the bush in question and the bush itself behind my hand , you can also see in the background (middle right) one of the scattered piles of leaves . The bush/plant/shrub was about 4-5 foot tall , a white fur grew on the back of the leaves and the stem . The bush was growing everywhere high on a mountain side . It resembled a wild tobacco plant but is not . I've looked through my books and cant seem to find anything about it .
What plant is it ? Is it edible or medicinal ?

Any thought's would be appreciated !

[Rusty]

Hello again , after a lot of searching , the plant name is Astrotricha latifolia . Would anyone know if it is edible or medicinal ?

Thank you !

[stru]

hey rusty, i have looked through a heap of reference books i have and can't find anything that indicates it is either edible or medicinal. I even checked a poisonous plants text and there is no reference to it there either. ofcourse that doesn't mean it's edible...or that it's not poisonous! i checked all three books by 'Cribb'...wildfood, wild medicine and useful wild plants...no reference. i didn't google it, i figured you could do that anyway. so unless someone local has some actual experience with it i can't offer anymore info really. good luck.
stru.

[Rusty]

Hey stru ! I appreciate the trouble you've gone to to find out for me , I've searched everything and found out as much as you did .
Greatly appreciated mate , thank you !!

[miraculous]

This plant looks more of a medicinal rather than edible ones.

[Rusty]

Hey miraculous ! Yes it does look medicial . I just had a look for indigenous medicinal plants and found something interesting .

http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bit ... sequence=1

Astrotricha longifolia "seems" to be mentioned as having antimicrobial properties , the language gets qiute thick so I'm not quite sure but it looks like a sister plant astrotricha latifoila .

???????????????

[JolyV]

Take a look around here http://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/57742/1/hdl_57742.pdf