Patersonia maxwellii


Patersonia maxwellii is a species of flowering plant in the iris family Iridaceae and is endemic to the south of Western Australia. It is a tufted, rhizome-forming perennial herb with linear leaves and violet tepals.

Description

Patersonia maxwellii is a tufted, rhizome-forming perennial herb that has linear leaves long and wide and deeply grooved with tiny hairs on the edges. The flowering scape is long and glabrous and the sheath enclosing the flowers is lance-shaped, glabrous, chocolate brown and long. The outer tepals are violet, broadly egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide, the hypanthium tube about long and glabrous. Flowering occurs from September to November and the fruit is a capsule long containing dark brown seeds.

Taxonomy

This species was first formally described in 1869 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name Genosiris maxwellii in Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae from specimens collected by George Maxwell from Stokes's Inlet to McCallum's Inlet. In 1873, George Bentham changed the name to Patersonia maxwellii. The specific epithet commemorates George Maxwell.

Distribution and habitat

Patersonia maxwellii grows in heath and seasonally wet places in near-coastal areas between Albany and Israelite Bay and on the southern Darling Range in the Jarrah Forest and Esperance Plains biogeographic regions in southern Western Australia.

Conservation status

This patersonia is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.