Philotheca scabra
Philotheca scabra is a species of flowering plant in the family Rutaceae and is endemic to New South Wales. It is a small shrub with variably shaped leaves, depending on subspecies, and single white to pink flowers arranged on the ends of branchlets.
Description
Philotheca scabra is a shrub that grows to a height of with more or less bristly stems. The leaves are sessile, long and either more or less cylindrical and folded lengthwise or narrow oblong-elliptic and concave on the lower side. The flowers are borne singly on the ends of branchlets on a peduncle long and a pedicel long with two pairs of tiny bracteoles at the base. There are five fleshy, semicircular sepals about long, five elliptical white to pink petals long and ten stamens. Flowering occurs in spring and the fruit is about long with a beak about long.Taxonomy
This philotheca was first formally described in 1844 by Joseph Paxton who gave it the name Eriostemon scaber and published the description in Paxton's Magazine of Botany from a specimen "in the nursery of Messrs. Henderson, of Pine Apple Place, who received it from the gardens of Baron Hugel, at Vienna, about twelve months back". In 1970, Paul G. Wilson described two subspecies of Eriostemon scaber in the journal Nuytsia:- Eriostemon scaber subsp. latifolia Paul G.Wilson that has glandular-warty stems and leaves about long and wide;
- Eriostemon scaber Paul G.Wilson subsp. scaber that has smooth stems and more or less cylindrical leaves.
- Philotheca scabra subsp. latifolia Paul G.Wilson;
- Philotheca scabra Paul G.Wilson subsp. scabra.