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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Amaranthaceae
Ptilotus atriplicifolius

Citation: Benl, Mitt. Bot. München 2:404 (1958) var. atriplicifolius.

Synonymy: Trichinium atriplicifolium Cunn. ex Moq. in A. DC., Prod. 13, 2:286 (1849), partly; T. obovatum Gaudich. var. grandiflorum Benth., Fl. Aust. 5:221 (1870); P. obovatus (Gaudich.)F. Muell. var. grandiflorus (Benth.)Ewart & O.B. Davies, Fl. North. Terr. 100 (1917).

Common name: Silver-tails, crimson fox tail.

Description:
Open undershrub 20-80 rarely 100 cm tall and across, branches and foliage grey- to bluish-green, with a dense stellate-dendroid vestiture; leaves elliptic-obovate, apiculate, to 8 rarely 16 X 4 cm toward the base of stems, with margins more or less undulate.

Spikes terminal, hemispherical to cylindrical, to 7.5 X 3 rarely 4 cm, often in loose panicles; bract pale- to dark-brownish; perianth purple to mauve fading to pale-pink, with a turbinate tube c. 2 mm long; perianth-segments hirsute, with truncate apices averaging c. 2 mm long, densely woolly hairs of the inner segments obscuring the androecium; stamens red-purple when fresh, 3 perfect, the adnate cup with a free ring somewhat ciliate; ovary to 4.5 X 2 mm, stalked, glabrous.

Published illustration: Ewart (1910) Plants indigenous to Victoria 2:pl. 78.

Distribution:    All mainland States.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: all year round but most frequently June — Oct.


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

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available


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