Pityrodia augustensis
Pityrodia augustensis, commonly known as Mount Augustus foxglove, is a flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae and is endemic to a small area in Western Australia. It is a small, bushy shrub with its branches, leaves and some of its flower parts densely covered with woolly hairs. It is similar to the lovely foxglove and the sandplain foxglove but has very different leaves from those species.
Description
Pityrodia augustensis is a bushy shrub which grows to a height of about and which has its branches densely covered with greenish-white branched hairs. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs along the branches and are long, wide, narrow elliptic in shape and wedge-shaped at both ends. They are densely covered with a matted layer of woolly hairs.The flowers are arranged singly or in groups of up to five on woolly stalks, usually long the groups up to long. Each flower is surrounded by woolly bracts and bracteoles. The sepals are a deep purple-lilac colour, mostly woolly-hairy and are long forming a short tube near their base. The petals are a deep lilac colour and form a broad tube long with two "lips" - the upper one with two lobes and the lower one with three lobes. The tube is sparsely hairy on the outside and mostly glabrous on the inside. The four stamens are usually enclosed within the tube, one pair shorter than the others. Flowering occurs from August to October and is followed by a more or less spherical fruit surrounded by the sepals.
This species is similar to P. axillaris but that species has a deep red or scarlet petal tube which is almost glabrous on the outside. It also resembles P. terminalis which, however has elongated elliptic leaves which are more or less stem-clasping at the base.