Goodenia helmsii


Goodenia helmsii is a species of flowering plant in the family Goodeniaceae and is endemic to inland parts of the south-west of Western Australia. It is an erect or ascending shrub with cylindrical stem leaves and spikes of white flowers with purplish spots.

Description

Goodenia helmsii is an erect or ascending shrub that typically grows to a height of tall and glabrous except for woolly hairs in the leaf axils. The leaves are linear, cylindrical long and about wide. The flowers are arranged in a spike or spike-like thyrse up to long with small bracts and bracteoles. The sepals are triangular, long, the corolla white with purplish spots, long with more or less equal lobes long with wings about wide. Flowering mainly occurs from July to December and the fruit is a more or less spherical nut about in diameter.

Taxonomy and naming

This species was first formally described in 1905 by Ernst Georg Pritzel who gave it the name Scaevola helmsii. In 1990 Roger Charles Carolin changed the name to Goodenia helmsii in the journal Telopea. The specific epithet honours the naturalist Richard Helms.

Distribution and habitat

This goodenia grows in gravelly or sandy soil in inland areas of the south-west, in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Jarrah Forest, Mallee, Murchison and Yalgoo biogeographic regions of Western Australia.

Conservation status

Goodenia helmsii is classified as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Parks and Wildlife.