Pimelea spicata
Pimelea spicata, commonly known as the spiked rice flower, is a flowering plant in the family Thymelaeaceae and is endemic to New South Wales. It is a slender plant with white flowers and elliptic leaves.
Description
Pimelea spicata is a slender upright or decumbent shrub to high with smooth stems. The leaves elliptic to narrowly elliptic, arranged opposite, long, wide, and pointed to rounded at the apex. The flowers are in terminal spikes up to long, single flowers about long, tubular with four rounded spreading petals, white or sometimes pinkish, borne in racemes, crowded when young, elongated at maturity, on a smooth peduncle long at maturity. Flowering occurs mostly from August to December and the fruit is a small, green, narrowly egg-shaped nut about long.Taxonomy and naming
Pimelea spicata was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown and the description was published in Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae. The specific epithet means "spicate".Distribution and habitat
This pimelea grows in grassland on shale soils in coastal locations from Lansdowne, [New South Wales|Landsdowne] to Shellharbour and inland to Penrith. Extends along the coast from Lansdowne south to Shellharbour and inland to Penrith, New South Wales.Invasive weeds which compete with the plant for resources include bridal creeper, bitou bush, blackberry, St John's wort, kikuyu, lantana, African olive and privet.