Family: Amaranthaceae
Maireana spongiocarpa
Citation:
Paul G. Wilson, Nuytsia 2:37 (1975).
Synonymy: Kochia spongiocarpa F. Muell., Victorian Nat. 3:92 (1886).
Common name: None
Description:
Small shrub to 30 cm high; branches thin, densely woolly with smooth curled hairs; leaves well-spaced, alternate, fleshy, narrow-terete or fusiform, 8-15 mm long, acute, glabrous, dark-green.
Flowers solitary, bisexual, glabrous except for the woolly margin of the perianth lobes.
Fruiting perianth glabrous, dark-brown when dry; tube spongy, swollen and subglobular, c. 8 mm high and wide, easily crushed; wing simple, horizontal, entire, 12-15 mm diam., thin, shortly decurrent opposite the radicle as a fused double vertical membrane on the tube; upper perianth flat.
| Maireana spongiocarpa fruit
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Image source: fig 160m in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).
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Distribution:
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Occurs on open plains and scalded areas.
S.Aust.: NW, LE, GT, FR, EA, EP. N.T.; N.S.W.
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Conservation status:
native
Flowering time: Flowers and/or fruits: April — Nov.
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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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