Dodonaea aptera
Dodonaea aptera, commonly known as coast hop-bush, is a species of plant in the family Sapindaceae and is endemic to coastal areas of the south-west of Western Australia. It is an erect to spreading shrub with simple, usually elliptic leaves, flowers arranged in cymes or panicles and more or less spherical capsules with four lobe-like wings.
Description
Dodonaea aptera is a dioecious, erect or spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of up to. Its leaves are simple, usually elliptic, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are borne on the ends of branches in cymes or panicles, each flower on a pedicel long, with four lance-shaped sepals long, but that fall off as the flowers open. There are eight stamens and a glabrous ovary. Flowering mainly occurs from April to July, and the fruit is a more or less spherical, egg-shaped or broadly oblong capsule, long and wide, with lobe-like wings wide.
Taxonomy
Dodonaea aptera was first formally described in 1845 by Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel in Lehmann's Plantae Preissianae, based on specimens collected in 1839 at Garden Island, Rottnest Island, and Arthurs Head in Fremantle. The specific epithet means 'without a wing'.
Distribution and habitat
This species of Dodonaea grows in coastal areas of the south-west of Western Australia on limestone cliffs or shallow sand over limestone between Shark Bay and Cape Freycinet.
Dodonaea aptera is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.