Pimelea halophila


Pimelea halophila is a species of flowering plant in the family Thymelaeaceae and is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It is an undershrub with elliptic leaves and compact clusters of 4 to 20 cream-coloured or white flowers surrounded by 3 or 4 green involucral bracts, and grows on islands in salt lakes.

Description

Pimelea halophila is an undershrub that typically grows to a height of and often forms a cushion. The leaves are arranged alternately, elliptic to almost circular, long, wide on a petiole up to long. The flowers are arranged on the ends of branches in compact clusters of 4 to 20 on a peduncle about long. The clusters are surrounded by 3 or 4 involucral bracts that are yellowish-green, each flower on a hairy pedicel long. The flower tube of male flowers is long and the sepals long, and in female flowers the flower tube is long, the sepals long. The stamens in male flowers are shorter than the sepals and the female style extends beyond the end of the flower tube. Flowering occurs from August to October.

Taxonomy

Pimelea halophila was first formally described in 1988 by Barbara Lynette Rye and the description was published in the journal Nuytsia from specimens she collected near a Lake King salt lake. The specific epithet means "salt loving".

Distribution and habitat

This pimelea grows in saline sand on islands raised slightly above the level of a salt lake in the Coolgardie and Mallee bioregions of south-western Western Australia.

Conservation status

Pimelea halophila is listed as "Priority Two" by the Western Australian Government Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, meaning that it is poorly known and from only one or a few locations.