More coastal plants - part three

MORE COASTAL PLANTS - part three
Horticultural information courtesy of Launceston Field Naturalist Club

CALYTRIX TETRAGONA Myrtaceae
Photo Duncan Wade APS
Erect branched shrub with many twiggy branches and small fine linear or terete leaves, glabrous or shortly hairy. Flowers solitary in axils near ends of upper branches, forming showy heads. Calyx, shallow, cup-shaped, each sepal produced into a long fine awn projecting beyond the flower. Petals 5, white or pink. Stamens about 20, long, conspicuous. Fruit dry. Flowering October-December. Widespread in coastal heaths where it is often dense and wind pruned, and along some northern rivers. (All States)

SELLEIRA RADICANS Goodeniaceae
Shiny Swampmat

The fleshy spathulate (spoon shaped) bright green leaves 1-10 cm long of this small herb arise in clusters of 3-4 from a yellowish stem that runs along or sometimes under the ground. The flowers are solitary on stalks shorter than their acccompanying leaf and are fan shaped with 5 petals almost white on the inner surface but dull crimson or purplish-grey on the outer. In exposed positions the plant is only 2 cm high but in thick vegetation the leaves may be 15 cm long. Flowering October-November.
Found in salt marshes, edges of tidal streams.
(Tas. Vic. SA. New Zealand and Chile)

A purple-flowered coastal annual or short-lived perennial herb. Leaves deeply bipinnately lobed, rather fleshy with base stem-clasping. Branching stems to 60 cm high, bearing terminal clusters of daisy flowers 2.5-4 cm across with bright purple rays and yellow discs.
Fruit with pappus. A plant of stabilised sandy shores and low coastal banks especially on Bass Strait islands but not common on the mainland of Tasmania. This plant is extremely toxic for browsing stock.
Flowering October-December. Native of South Africa, has now spread in isolated patches along the coasts of Tas. Vic. WA. SA. and New Zealand.

SENECIO ELEGANS Asteraceae
Purple Ragwort

Senecio elegans

Photo Duncan Wade, APS

Pimelia flava

PIMELEA FLAVA Thymelaeaceae
Yellow Pimelea

Shrub 0.5 to 1.5 metres high with slender erect branches arising in whorls below the previous year’s flower heads. Bark light brown, smooth, tearing in ribbons. Leaves 4-12 mm long, opposite, obovate - oblong or orbicular, blunt, bluish-green. Flower heads bright buttercup yellow, made up of many tubular flowers surrounded by four wide green bracts.

WESTRINGIA RIGIDA Lamiaceae Stiff Westringia

Photo: Kris Schaffer

Large shrub to 3 m tall, flowering for a long period. Leaves narrow-linear, about 1.5 cm long, pointed, glossy green above, white beneath except for the prominent midrib and revolute margins. Leaves in well-spaced whorls of 3, sometimes 4, more crowded near the ends of the branches. Flowers in leaf axils trowards the ends of branches, tubular, opening widely with 2 lips, mauve-white with magenta dots concentrated around the throat and on lower lip.
Fruit a group of 4 nutlets surrounded by persistent 5-lobed calyx.
Flowering mainly August-December, often other times. Localised on foredunes and rocky outcrops
on the east coast of Tasmania. Also Vic, NSW, SA, Qld, WA.

Information courtesy of the Launceston Field Naturalists Club.

BOSSIAE CINEREA Fabaceae Showy Bossia

Erect or spreading shrub with many stiff branches, 30-80cm tall. Leaves narrow-triangular, up to 3cm long, tapering to a sharp point with fine bristle-like stiples.
Showy pea flowers, solitary but often numerous in leaf axils of the branchlets, to 1.5cm across, yellow with reddish brown markings and keel. Pod about 2cm long, about twice as long as broad, flattened.
Flowering September-November.
Abundant in coastal heathlands and light forests.
Also Vic, NSW, SA
Information courtesy of the Launceston Field Naturalists Club