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)
Calytrix tetragona

 
Selliera radicans SELLIERA RADICANS                                Goodeniaceae

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)

Photo Michael Garrett, APS


 
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.


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