Coastal Plants

COASTAL PLANTS
Horticultural information courtesy of Launceston Field Naturalist Club

ACACIA SOPHORAE
A common shrub with narrow-linear stalked leaves on long arching branches which root and bind the sand. Also found a short distance inland as a small tree up to 5 metres tall.
Phyllodes dark green, elliptical, blunt pointed with several prominent longitudinal veins.
Flowers in long straight yellow spikes,
1 or 2 spikes together in the upper leaf axils. Pods thick, narrow, 8-15 cm long slightly narrowing between seeds. Flowering August-September. Occurs
in sandy soil, sand dunes and fringing beaches.
Photo: Duncan Wade, APS

Fabaceae-Mimosoideae
Coast Wattle, Boobyalla

Acacia sophorae

Rutaceae
Stinking Boronia

Boronia anemonifolia

BORONIA ANEMONIFOLIA
This boronia is variable in its leaf shape but characterised by its long stalked, sticky, very
glandular leaves, smelling strongly of turpentine, and its numerous small flowers in groups
shorter than the leaf below them. Leaves variable in width, thick, warty and trifoliate or each leaflet further lobed or divided, so appearing to have 5 or more leaflets. A very wide-leafed form occurs on west coast. Flowers in stalked clusters; often 3 clusters on a common stalk, each cluster has up to 3 pink and white flowers. A very showy plant in full bloom with flowers in each axil along many centimetres of stem. Flowering spring-summer. Scattered in heaths throughout the north and west of Tasmania, and on dry hillsides in the south. (Tas. Vic. NSW. Qld)
Photo: Duncan Wade, APS

CORREA ALBA
Unlike other Tasmanian species of Correa, the white petals of this shrub spread widely forming a cup-shaped rather than tubular bell flower. The leaves are broad, ovate to almost orbicular, 1-3 cm long, grey-green and leathery. Flowers 2-3 together on short
stalks at the ends of branches, not pendulous, have 4 free thick petals, their outer surface with stellate hairs and 4 thick stamens with red anthers about as long as the petals. Fruit divided into 4 parts, covered with short hairs. Flowering most of the year. Common
in sandy soil on coasts, very resistant to salt spray. (Tas. Vic. NSW. SA)
Photo: Duncan Wade, APS

Rutaceae
White Correa

Correa alba

CORREA BACKHOUSEANA Rutaceae

Bushy shrub 1.5 metres high, young branches and undersides of leaves covered with rusty hairs. Leaves ovate or oblong, apex blunt or indented, upper surfaces glossy, pale rusty beneath, 1.5 - 3 cm long. Flowers wide, 1-3 together at ends of lateral branches; calyx small, cup like, edges recurved; flower tube pale whitish green, the whole covered with yellowish stellate hairs which are denser and darker brown on the spreading lobes, 8 stamens, 4 with wide filament bases alternating with 4 narrow ones; ovary covered with short dense hairs. Fruit separating into four 2-seeded parts. Flowering spring-summer.
Coastal, west of Rocky Cape, on west and south coasts and islands of Bass Strait. (Tas. Vic.)

Photo: Phil Collier, APS

This tall coastal shrub has semi-erect or spreading branches and grey bark. The leaves are oblanceolate, 1.5-2.5cm long and 4-6mm broad, widest just above the middle; apex bluntly pointed, dull green, flat, margins slightly recurved with faint parallel veins. Flowers sessile (without a stalk) in numerous straight close spikes to 3 cm long, one spike per axil near ends of branches. Buds pinkish, flowers white with short tubes, lobes spreading, densely covered with white hairs. Anthers at throat of tube. Fruit: cream waxy drupe. Edible, often eaten by seagulls. Flowering spring. Tas. temperate mainland.(Courtesy of Launceston Field Naturalist Club)

LEUCOPOGON PARVIFLORUS Epacridaceae Currant Bush

Leucopogon parviflorus

There are at least 200 Leucopogons in Australia, and all have small, mostly white flowers with densely bearded petals. Despite the large number of species, they are very difficult to bring into cultivation and doubtless more experimental work needs to be done to solve the mystery.