Lysiosepalum rugosum
Lysiosepalum rugosum, also known as the wrinkled-leaf lysiosepalum, is a species of flowering plant in the mallow family and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is shrub with its young branches covered with woolly, star-shaped hairs, and has narrowly egg-shaped leaves and blue, purple of pink flowers usually in groups of 4 to 6.
Description
Lysiosepalum rugosum grows is a shrub that typically grows to a height of and has its young branches with woolly, star-shaped hairs. The leaves are narrowly egg-shaped, long and wide on a petiole long with stipules about long and wide at the bottom of the petiole. The flowers are blue, purple of pink, usually borne in groups of 6 to 8 on a peduncle long with linear or spoon-shaped bracts long at the base, each flower on a pedicel long with linear to egg-shaped bracteoles long at the base of the sepals. The six sepal lobes are egg-shaped or elliptic, long and wide, and there are sometimes dark red petals long. Flowering occurs from July to October and the fruit is about long and wide.
Taxonomy
Lysiosepalum rugosum was first formlly described in 1863 by George Bentham in his Flora Australiensis from specimens collected near the Swan River Colony by James Drummond. The specific epithet means "wrinkled", referring to the surface of the leaves.
Wrinkled-leaf lysiosepalum grows in a range of soils, but usually on lateritic gravels in open woodland and shrubland, and is widely distributed from north-east of Geraldton to Manmanning in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Geraldton Sandplains and Jarrah Forest IBRA bioregions of south-west Western Australia.