Family: Francoaceae
Melianthus comosus
Citation:
Vahl, Symb. Bot. 3:86 (1794).
Synonymy: Not Applicable Common name: Tufted honey flower; kruidje-roer-my-nie.
Description:
Small partly downy shrub often 2-3 m high; leaves 10-12 cm long; leaflets 9-11, oblong-lanceolate, deeply serrate, green with minute stellate hairs above, grey-tomentose beneath, 4-5 cm long, 10-15 mm broad; stipules subulate, free, 10-25 mm long.
Flowers in spreading racemes usually less than 9 cm long; bracts ovate, acuminate, longer than the pedicels; pedicels c. 5 mm long; calyx greenish and pink, conspicuously pouched at the base; the 2 upper segments broad-ovate, with a dark-red spot at the base inside, 10-20 mm long; the other 3 segments lanceolate, shorter; petals with red oblanceolate laminas and hairy linear claws which are connected at the summit by a woolly growth, 12-15 mm long.
Capsule stellate-downy, net-veined, 25-30 mm long; valves rounded at the top and compressed so as to make the capsule appear 4-winged; seeds black, shining, 1 or 2 in each cell.
| Melianthus comosus.
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Image source: fig 424 in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).
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Published illustration:
Morley & Toelken (1983) Flowering plants in Australia, fig. 118.
Distribution:
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S.Aust.: YP, SL, SE. Vic. Native to South Africa.
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Conservation status:
naturalised
Flowering time: Aug. — 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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