Sida ammophila
Sida ammophila commonly known as sand sida,is a flowering plant in the family Malvaceae. It is a spreading perennial with yellow flowers, bluish-green leaves and grows on all mainland states of Australia and the Northern Territory.
Description
Sida ammophila is an upright or spreading, perennial shrub to about high with bluish-grey sometimes brownish branches densely covered in short, matted hairs. The leaves are arranged alternately along the stem, hairy, narrowly oblong or narrowly oval-shaped, long, wide and rounded or heart-shaped at the base. Both surfaces with star-shaped hairs and green-grey or bluish green above, lighter, less hairy below and minute teeth on the margins. Flowers mostly solitary, occasionally in racemes on a pedicel long, 5 petalled, pointed, yellow, and corolla long. Flowering may occur any time of the year and the fruit is a mericarp, in diameter, dark brown, wrinkled on lower surface, smooth on upper surface and occasional hairs.
Taxonomy and naming
Sida ammophila was first formally described in 1967 by J.H.Willis and the description was published in Muelleria from a type specimen collected in 1851 by Ferdinand Von Mueller in South Australia.The specific epithet means 'sand loving'.
Distribution and habitat
Sand sida grows on sand dunes, sandy soils, sandy ridges in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory.