Cryptandra exilis
Cryptandra exilis, commonly known as slender pearlflower, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rhamnaceae and is endemic to Tasmania. It is a small, straggly, low-growing shrub with linear leaves and tube-shaped white or cream-coloured flowers arranged in small groups on the ends of branches.
Description
Cryptandra exilis is a shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has slender, low-lying or straggly stems. Its leaves are arranged in small bundles on short side-branches and are linear with the edges rolled under and long. The flowers are usually arranged in groups of 2 to 6 on the ends of the main branches with dark brown bracts at the base, half as long as the sepal tube. The sepals are white or cream-coloured and joined at the base, forming a densely hairy tube more than long with lobes about long. The petals form a hood over the stamens and the style is about long. Flowering occurs from September to May, and the fruit is a capsule about long.
Taxonomy
Cryptandra exilis was first formally described in 1991 by Dennis Ivor Morris in Aspects of Tasmanian Botany - a tribute to Winifred Curtis from specimens collected by in 1980. The specific epithet means "small" or "weak".
Distribution and habitat
Slender pearlflower grows in heathy or shrubby forest from Cape [Barren Island] to the Tasman Peninsula on the east coast of Tasmania.