Pityrodia lepidota
Pityrodia lepidota is a flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a small, densely-branched shrub with small leaves and whitish, bell-shaped flowers. The entire plant, apart from the petals, is densely covered with small, circular scales.
Description
Pityrodia lepidota is a dense, multi-stemmed shrub which usually grows to a height of and which has its branches and leaves densely covered with ash coloured, circular scales. The leaves are stalkless, egg-shaped to lance-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide.The flowers are solitary or in groups of two or three on short, scaly stalks in upper leaf axils. The flowers are surrounded by scaly, linear to lance-shaped bracts and tiny bracteoles. Single flowers are surrounded by leafy bracts long and the groups by scaly bracts about long. The five sepals are long, densely covered with scales on the outside and joined for about half their length to form a tube with five blunt lobes. The five petals are long, whitish, pale pink or pale lilac coloured and joined to form a bell-shaped tube with five lobes on the end. The tube is mostly glabrous except for a densely hairy ring around the ovary and a few hairs on the lowest petal lobe. The lowest, central lobe is oblong to egg-shaped, long, wide and the other lobes are slightly smaller. Flowering occurs from June to December, sometimes as late as March and is followed by hairy, oval-shaped fruit with the sepals still attached.