Citation: Brongn. in Duperrey, Voy. la Coquille 219 (71834).

Synonymy: P. microphylla Brongn. var. diffusa Muell.-Arg. in A. De., Prod. 15, 2:193 (1866).

Common name: Small (-leaved} poranthera.

Description:
Annual slender glabrous herbs, usually with several to many ascending filiform stems 2-15 cm long, green distally, sometimes brown and hard basally; leaves alternate or opposite, obovate to spathulate, attenuate into an indistinct petiole, 5-10 rarely to 15 mm long and 1-5 mm wide, green, flat or with slightly recurved margins, the midrib usually ending in a fine mucro; bracts ovate-lanceolate, to 1 mm long, white-leathery.

Flowers on pedicels 0.5-5 mm long, few in small leafy head-like corymbs, the outer floral leaves usually much exceeding the flowers; after anthesis the rhachis often much elongated; calyx segments generally 5, obovate, 1 to 1.5 mm long, petaloid, whitish, rarely tinted pink, firstly imbricate, later rotate; male flowers with 5 stamens, filaments free and half the length of the segments; anthers semiglobular, c. 1 mm long, white; rudimentary ovary minute, globular, gland-like; female calyx segments usually 5, persistent after fruiting with the clavate trilobed axis; ovary at anthesis c. 0.5 mm across, green, 3 styles deeply 2-partite into 6 rotate filiform segments opposite the ovary lobes, white, tipped brown.

Capsule distinctly 3-6-lobed or indistinctly to 2 mm across, 6-seeded; seed wedge-shaped reniform, dorsally convex to globular, 0.6-0.8 mm long, smooth and red-brown or white-powdered or white-granulate-tuberculate all over.

	Poranthera microphylla habit, female flower, male flower, fruit and 2 seeds.
Image source: fig 407b in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Cochrane et al. (1968) Flowers and plants of Victoria, t. 412; Burbidge (1970) Flora of the A.C.T., fig. 239; Jessop (1981) Flora of central Australia, fig. 215.

Distribution:  Occurring in scrublands and not too disturbed areas along creeks, clearings or firebreaks. S.Aust.: FR, EP, NL, MU, YP, SL, KI, SE.   all States.   New Zealand. Conservation status: native Flowering time: Sept. — April.

SA Distribution Map based on current data relating to specimens held in the State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: After anthesis the male flowers are deciduous leaving the plants only with female floral parts and some seemingly dioecious in their later stages.

Author: Not yet available