Maireana tomentosa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Maireana tomentosa | |
|---|---|
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Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Order: | Caryophyllales |
| Family: | Amaranthaceae |
| Genus: | Maireana |
| Species: | M. tomentosa |
| Binomial name | |
| Maireana tomentosa | |
Maireana tomentosa, commonly known as felty bluebush,[2] is a plant in the Amaranthaceae family and is endemic to Australia. It is an erect, open shrub with woolly branches, semiterete leaves, flowers arranged singly and a glabrous fruiting perianth with a horizontal wing with indistinct veins.
Maireana tomentosa is an erect, open shrub that typically grows to a height of about 1 m (3 ft 3 in) and has woolly branches. The leaves are arranged alternately, semiterete, mostly 5–8 mm (0.20–0.31 in) long and 1 mm (0.039 in) wide. The flowers are bisexual and arranged singly, the fruiting perianth glabrous with a hemispherical or cup-shaped tube about 1.0–1.5 mm (0.039–0.059 in) high and 1.5–2.5 mm (0.059–0.098 in) in diameter with a simple, horizontal wing mostly 8–11 mm (0.31–0.43 in) in diameter with indistinct veins and without a radial slit. The upper perianth is flat or raised to form a hard, ring-shaped disc.[2][3][4]
Taxonomy
Maireana tomentosa was first formally described in 1840 by Alfred Moquin-Tandon in his Chenopodearum Monographica Enumeratio from specimens collected near Shark Bay.[5][6] The specific epithet (tomentosa) means 'tomentose, referring to dense, short, matted hairs.[7]
In 1975, Paul G. Wilson described two subspecies of M. tomentosa in the journal Nuytsia and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census: