Blandfordia punicea
Blandfordia punicea, commonly known as Tasmanian Christmas bell, is a species of flowering plant that is endemic to western Tasmania. It is a tufted perennial herb with linear leaves and drooping red, bell-shaped flowers that are yellow on the inside.
Description
Blandfordia punicea is a tufted perennial herb with flat, ribbed, strap-like leaves long, wide, with small teeth on the edge and often with a reddish tinge. The flowering stem is unbranched and bears up to twenty bell-shaped flowers up to long. The flowers are borne on a stout flowering stem up to long, each flower with a pedicel long. The stamens are attached above the middle of the flower tube. The flowers are mostly red on the outside with yellow on the inside and are usually very prominent in their native habitat, often rising above ground-level vegetation between mid-spring and early autumn. The fruit is a capsule long on a stalk about long.
Tasmanian Christmas bell was first formally described in 1805 by Jacques Labillardière who gave it the name Aletris punicea and published the description in Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen. In 1830, Robert Sweet changed the name to Blandfordia punicea. The specific epithet is a Latin word meaning "reddish" or "purplish-red".
Distribution and habitat
Blandfordia punicea grows in button grass and damp heath, mostly west of a line between Bruny Island and Rocky Cape.
Culture
An Australian 50c stamp depicting the species was issued on 13 February 2007.