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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Amaranthaceae
Dissocarpus paradoxus

Citation: Ulbr., Natürl. Pflanzenfam. edn 2, 16c:533 (1934).

Synonymy: Sclerolaena paradoxa R. Br., Prod. Fl. Nov. Holl. 410 (1810); Bassia paradoxa (R. Br.)F. Muell., Syst. Census Aust. Pl. 1:30 (1882).

Common name: Ball bindyi, curious saltbush, cannon-ball, hard-head bassia.

Description:
Erect or decumbent rounded much branched shrub to 50 cm high; branches woolly; leaves semiterete, slender, 5-15 mm long.

Flowers connate in groups of 8-16 in dense woolly axillary glomerules.

Infructescence a persistent densely woolly ball, 10-15 mm diam.; fruiting perianths fused in the lower two-thirds into a woody spherical mass; lobes emergent, erect; spines 5, slender, 3-6 mm long, erect or spreading, hard at first, woolly, arising at the base of each lobe.

image of FSA1_Dissocarpus_par.jpg Dissocarpus paradoxus twig with infructescences
Image source: fig. 154c in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).
image of FSA1_Dissocarpus_par2.jpg Dissocarpus paradoxus
Image source: pl. 11 in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 255 and fig. 46/24.

Distribution:  Often found on clay or on scalded zones.

S.Aust.: NW, LE, NU, GT, FR, EA, EP, NL, MU, YP.   W.Aust.; N.T.; Qld; N.S.W.; Vic.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: No flowering time is available


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available


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