Philotheca tomentella


Philotheca tomentella is a species of flowering plant in the family Rutaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is an undershrub with small club-shaped to cylindrical leaves and white flowers with a pale red central stripe, arranged singly or in groups of up to four on the ends of branchlets.

Description

Philotheca tomentella is an undershrub that typically grows to a height of and has slightly glandular-warty branchlets. The leaves are club-shaped to more or less cylindrical, long, flat on the upper surface and rounded on the lower. The flowers are arranged singly or in groups of up to four on the ends of branchlets, each flower on a pedicel long. The five sepals are broadly triangular to more or less round, about long with a tiny black tip. The five petals are egg-shaped and white with a pale red central stripe and long. The ten stamens are free from each other and the anthers have a prominent white appendage. Flowering occurs from August to October and the fruit is about long.

Taxonomy

This species was first described in 1904 by Ludwig Diels and Ernst Georg Pritzel who gave it the name Erisotemon tomentellus in Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie. In 1998, Paul Wilson changed the name to Philotheca tomentella in the journal Nuytsia.

Distribution and habitat

This philotheca grows in shrubland on sand between the Murchison Ranges, Lake Grace and Queen Victoria Spring area in the south-west of Western Australia.

Conservation status

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