Verticordia crebra
Verticordia crebra, commonly known as Barrens featherflower, crowded featherflower or Twertup featherflower, is a flowering plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a sprawling shrub with crowded, cylinder-shaped leaves with small, yellow flowers that are almost hidden by the leaves but with a style which extends well beyond the petals. The plant looks superficially like a miniature pine tree.
Description
Verticordia crebra is a sprawling, open-branched shrub with a single main stem and which grows to a height of about and a width of. Its leaves are crowded over the entire plant, linear in shape and round in cross-section, long with a stalk long, giving the plant the appearance of a small pine tree.The flowers are scattered, appearing in a few upper leaf axils on erect or spreading stalks long, and apart from the styles are almost hidden by the foliage. The floral cup is shaped like half a sphere, about long, smooth and densely hairy. The sepals are pale yellow, long with 6 to 8 feathery lobes. The petals are roughly circular in shape, pale yellow, about long with irregularly toothed margins. The style is long, gently curved, hairy and extends well beyond the flower and the foliage. Flowering time is from May to October.
Taxonomy and naming
Verticordia crebra was first formally described by Alex George in 1991 from specimens collected in the Fitzgerald River National Park and the description was published in Nuytsia. The specific epithet is derived from the Latin word creber meaning "close", "pressed together" or "frequent", referring to the crowded leaves.George placed this species in subgenus Verticordia, section Verticordia along with V. helichrysantha, V. plumosa, V. stenopetala, V. sieberi, V. harveyi, V. pityrhops, and V. fimbrilepis.