Patersonia rudis
Patersonia rudis, commonly known as hairy flag, is a species of plant in the iris family Iridaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a tufted, rhizome-forming perennial herb with linear to sword-shaped leaves and violet tepals.
Description
Patersonia rudis is a tufted perennial herb that typically grows to a height of and forms a rhizome covered by sticky leaf bases. Its leaves are linear to sword-shaped and long, striated and softly-hairy near the base. The flowering scape is long and velvety with the sheath enclosing the flowers lance-shaped, blackish, prominently veined and long. The outer tepals are violet, egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide, the hypanthium tube long and softly-hairy. Flowering occurs from October to December and the fruit is an oval capsule long, containing black seeds.Taxonomy and naming
Patersonia rudis was first described in 1846 by Stephan Endlicher in Lehmann's Plantae Preissianae. The specific epithet means "rough" or "wild".In 1986, David Alan Cooke and Alex George described two subspecies in the Flora of Australia and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census:Petersonia rudis Endl. subsp. rudis has leaves more than long and wide, and a flowering sheath that often becomes more or less glabrous as it ages;Petersonia rudis subsp. velutina D.A.Cooke has shorter, narrower leaves than the autonym and the sheath is never glabrous.