Guichenotia macrantha
Guichenotia macrantha, commonly known as large-flowered guichenotia, is a species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae. It is a shrub with grey-green leaves, mauve flowers and is endemic to Western Australia.
Description
Guichenotia macrantha is an open, upright, or sometimes a straggling small or tall shrub to high, wide with new growth covered in star-shaped hairs. The leaves are linear to oblong shaped, upper surface grey-green, long, wide, margins rolled under, lower surface yellowish-green, wrinkled, thickly hairy, rounded apex on a petiole long. The calyx lobes are mauve, pink-purple, sometimes white, each lobe with three distinct ribs, in diameter, divided to halfway, petals deep red, small, pedicel long and peduncles long. The bracts are leaf-like, oval-shaped, long, wide and borne at the base of each pedicel. Flowering occurs from May to September and the fruit is a woody, elliptic-shaped capsule.
Guichenotia macrantha was first formally described in 1846 by Russian botanist Nikolai Turczaninow and the description was published in Bulletin de la Société Impériale des Naturalistes de Moscou. The specific epithet means "large flowered".
Distribution and habitat
Large-flowered guichenotia grows on a variety of soils including clay sands, sands, gravel and granite from the Murchison River, [Western Australia|Murchison River] to Merredin.