Synaphea decorticans
Synaphea decorticans is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a dense shrub with pinnatipartite leaves, spikes of moderately crowded yellow flowers and elliptic fruit with a short beak.
Description
Synaphea decorticans is a dense shrub that typically grows to a height of up to with stems up to long and covered with woolly hairs. The leaves are pinnatipartite, long and up to wide on a petiole long. The end lobes are lance-shaped, wide. The flowers are yellow and borne in moderately crowded spikes long on a peduncle up to long with spreading bracts long. The perianth has a wide opening, the upper tepal long and about wide and curved, the lower tepal about long. The stigma is almost square to shaped like a trapezium with the lobes bent back, shallowly to moderately notched, long and wide. Flowering occurs in September and October, and the fruit is elliptic on a short neck, long with a beak on the end.
Taxonomy
Synaphea decorticans was first formally described in 1839 by John Lindley in his A Sketch of the Vegetation of the [Swan River Colony]. The specific epithet means 'with peeling bark', because Lindley believed a piece of bark from a different species, belonged to the type specimen.
Distribution and habitat
This species of Synaphea grows in lateritic soil and is common in jarrah-marri forest on the Darling Scarp between Chittering and Collie in the Avon Wheatbelt, Jarrah Forest and Swan Coastal Plain bioregions of south-western Western Australia.
Conservation status
Synaphea decorticans is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.