Family: Gyrostemonaceae
Gyrostemon thesioides
Citation:
A.S. George, Fl. Aust. 8:392 (1982).
Synonymy: Didymotheca thesioides Hook. f., Lond. J. Bot. 6:279 (1847); D. veroniciformis F. Muell., Linnaea 25:438 (1853).
Common name: Broom wheel-fruit.
Description:
Shrubs to 70 cm high, with slender erect almost virgate branches usually with decurrent ridges from the leaf bases when young; leaves linear, 5-20 X c. 1.5 mm, usually sharply acute, more or less angular-terete, erect to almost appressed to the stems.
male flowers with erect pedicels c. 1 mm long, 3-4 mm across at anthesis, with the calyx broadly lobed, with 9-12 anthers in 1 whorl; female flowers with pedicels rarely to 1 mm long, with the calyx distinctly lobed and acute, with 2 rarely 1 carpels each with a long stigma usually recurved onto the almost orbicular ovary.
Fruit usually bilobed in side view, more or less swollen around the seed, c.2 mm long; seeds ovate in side view, c. 1.5 mm long, covered with often undulate transverse ridges from the centre, with a flattened aril wrapped around much of the seed.
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Image source: fig. 103b in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).
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Distribution:
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Widespread but never common on coastal dunes.
S.Aust.: FR, EP, MU, YP, KI, SE. W.Aust.; ?N.S.W.; Tas.
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Conservation status:
native
Flowering time: June — 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
Taxonomic notes:
The stiffly erect branches of some plants of G. australasicus give particularly male plants a similar appearance to those of G. thesioides which is, however, usually distinguished by decurrent ridges from the leaf bases along the internodes and the absence of uncinate leaf apices.
Author:
Not yet available
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