Dodonaea rigida
Dodonaea rigida is a species of flowering plant in the family Sapindaceae and is endemic to Western Australia. It is an erect, dioecious shrub with simple, sessile rigid erect leaves, flowers in cymes of three or four in leaf axils, the flowers usually with three or four sepals, and capsules with three or four membranous wings.
Description
Dodonaea rigida is an erect, dioecious shrub that typically grows to a height of up to. Its leaves are simple, sessile, rigid, almost thread-like, sometimes sharply pointed, long, about wide. The flowers are arranged in cymes of three or four in leaf axils, each flower on a pedicel long, with three or four broadly egg-shaped sepals, long but that fall off as the flowers develop. The ovary is glabrous and the fruit is a three- or four-winged capsule, long and wide, the wings wide and membranous.
Taxonomy
Dodonaea rigida was first formally described in 1984 by Judith Gay West in the journal Brunonia. The specific epithet means 'hard', referring to the leaves.
This species of Dodonaea grows in sandy soil on sand dunes or rocky ridges near creeks and in sandy loam in shrubland in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Gascoyne, Gibson Desert, Great Victoria Desert, Little Sandy Desert, Murchison, Nullarbor and Yalgoo bioregions of Western Australia.
Dodonaea rigida is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.