Family: Amaranthaceae
Ptilotus symonii
Citation:
Benl, Trans. R. Soc. S. Aust. 92:33, fig. 1 (1968).
Synonymy: Not Applicable Common name: None
Description:
Much-branched tenuous perennial with several c. 50 cm long prostrate to curved-ascending stems from a strong fusiform rhizome (to 25 x 1.6 cm), low creeping or sprawling upwards amongst bushes, young shoots slightly tomentose with appressed crisp hairs vanishing downwards with age; branches and very delicate branchlets densely bearing uncommonly small oblong-lanceolate more or less mucronate leaves, upper ones often aciculate.
Spikes numerous, hemispherical (1.5-2.5 cm diam.) or subovoid (c. 2.5 x 1.8 cm), solitary, terminating branchlets, rarely the lateral subsessile, with 15-25 loosely arranged flowers yellowish-green to straw-coloured, white-hairy by an intense dorsal perianth pubescence; bract 2.5-3 x 1-1.2 mm, brownish, bracteoles 4-6 x c. 2 mm, with hyaline wings; perianth reddish fading to green-yellow and creamy, with glabrous perianth apices 3-4 mm long, all markedly overtopped and concealed by the dorsal hairs primarily rising from the lower half of the 9-11 mm long perianth-segments, also covering the perianth tube 0.8-1.2 mm long; outer segments with a denticulate truncate apex, inner ones narrower and more acute, with a woolly pubescence taking its origin from the margins and especially from the edge of the perianth tube; 3 stamens fertile, staminal cup with a minute free ring; ovary (2.5-3 x 0.7-1 mm) stipitate, glabrous, style (c. 1.3 mm) more or less eccentric.
Distribution:
|
S.Aust.: NU. W.Aust.
|
Conservation status:
native
Flowering time: June — Feb., mainly Sept. — Nov.
|
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
|