Pimelea flava
Pimelea flava is a species of flowering plant in the family Thymelaeaceae and is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It is a shrub with narrowly elliptic to egg-shaped leaves arranged in opposite pairs, and compact clusters of 9 or more flowers with 2 or 4 elliptic to circular involucral bracts at the base. The flowers and bracts are white or yellow, depending on subspecies.
Description
Pimelea flava is a shrub that typically grows to a height of and has hairy young stems. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, often crowded, narrowly elliptic to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base or almost circular, long, wide on a short petiole and glabrous. The flowers are arranged in compact clusters of 9 to many on the ends of branches on a peduncle long, with 2 to 4 leaf-like, elliptic, leaf-like involucral bracts long and wide. Each flower is either male or female, hairy, yellow or white, depending on subspecies. The floral tube is long, the sepals long and the stamens shorter than the sepals. Flowering mainly occurs from August to December.Taxonomy
The species was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae. The specific epithet means "yellow".In 1847, Diederich Franz Leonhard von Schlechtendal described Pimelea dichotoma in the journal Linnaea, but in 1983, Threlfall reduced it to Pimelea flava subsp. dichotoma in the journal Brunonia. That name, and that of the autonym are accepted by the Australian Plant Census:Pimelea flava subsp. dichotoma Threlfall, commonly known as diosma rice-flower, usually grows to a height of has green involucral bracts and white flowers. Pimelea flava R.Br. subsp. flava'' commonly known as yellow rice-flower,usually grows to a height of has green to yellowish involucral bracts and yellow flowers.