Family: Gyrostemonaceae
Gyrostemon australasicus
Citation:
Heimerl, Natürl. Pflanzenfam. 3, 1b:12 (1889).
Synonymy: Cyclotheca australasica Moq. in A. DC., Prod. 13, 2:38 (1849).
Common name: False buckbush, wheel fruit, fireweed.
Description:
Shrubs rarely taller than c.1 m, with stiffly erect branches; leaves linear or linear-elliptic, 8-30 x 1-3 mm, acute and often uncinate (pointed and recurved).
Male flowers with recurred pedicels 1-2 mm long, c.4 mm across at anthesis, with the calyx shallowly lobed, with usually 9-12 anthers in I whorl; female flowers with recurred pedicels 1-2 mm long, with the calyx distinctly lobed and acute, with 4-7 carpels each with a long sessile stigma often recurved around the almost spherical ovary.
Fruit spherical or almost so, 4-5 mm long; seeds c.2 mm long, oblong, laterally compressed, rugose with short undulate transverse ridges from the centre, with a small irregular aril at the base.
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Image source: fig. 103a in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).
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Published illustration:
Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 291.
Distribution:
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Growing mainly on sandy soils often with surface limestone.
S.Aust.: FR, EP, MU, YP, SL, KI, SE. N.S.W.; Vic.
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Conservation status:
native
Flowering time: mainly July — Dec.
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SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia
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Biology:
No text
Author:
Not yet available
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