Family: Boraginaceae
Plagiobothrys plurisepaleus
Citation:
I.M. Johnston, Contr. Gray Herb. 81:75 (1928).
Synonymy: Maccoya plurisepalea F. Muell., Fragm. Phyt. Aust. 1:127 (1859); Rochelia maccoya F. Muell. ex Benth., Fl. Aust. 4:408 (1868); R. plurisepalea (F. Muell.)Druce, Rep. Botl Soc. Exch. Club Br. Isl. 1916:644 (1917); Allocarya plurisepalea (F. Muell.)Brand;, Pflanzenr. 97 (252):165 (1931).
Common name: White rochelia, whiteforget-me-not.
Description:
Annuals with many branches mainly from the base, to 12 cm long, decumbent to procumbent, with flowers along the branches, with a tap root more or less densely covered with forward-directed appressed hairs, rarely with a broad base; leaves densely clustered, opposite and with a broad ciliate sheath at the base in a sparse basal rosette becoming scattered, alternate and without a sheath on the inflorescences, linear to linear-oblanceolate, 0.8-4.5 x 0.1-0.3 cm, usually bluntly acute, rarely rounded.
Inflorescence terminal, with each branch being a scorpioid cyme with widely spaced flowers with pedicels to 2 mm long when fruiting, with bracts longer than the calyx at least when flowering; sepals scarcely connate basally, c. 2 mm long or to 9 mm when fruiting and unequally long, with lobes linear bluntly acute, densely covered with forward-directed hairs becoming hard and clasping when fruiting; corolla narrowly tubular, white, glabrous, 2-2.5 mm long, without pouches or scales in the throat, lobes almost square, c. 0.5 mm long, rounded; stamens inserted at about the middle of the corolla tube, with anthers almost sessile, narrowly ovoid, c. 0.4 mm long, without appendages; ovary 2-4-lobed with a style inserted near the base, c. 0.5 mm long, with a terminal capitate stigma.
Fruit usually with 2 mericarps incompletely splitting from the central axis, ovoid, with a vertical keel continuing from the scar of attachment, ridged dorsally but with a rugose surface sometimes rough to almost finely papillate.
| Habit, half flower, fruiting calyx and mericarp in two views.
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Image source: fig. 542C 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. 567.
Distribution:
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S.Aust.: NW, LE, GT, FR, EA, EP, NL, MU, SE. N.T.; N.S.W.; Vic.
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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:
This species varies from densely hairy to almost glabrous. The sculpturing of the mericarps also varies from rugose to reticulate with a granulate to tuberculate surface but they are distinguished from those of P. elachanthus by their length (about twice as long as broad), a finer reticulum and many wrinkles forming a puckering around the attachment scar.
Author:
Not yet available
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