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.