Pimelea trichostachya
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Annual rice-flower | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Flowers of Pimelea trichostachya near Bourke, New South Wales | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Rosids |
| Order: | Malvales |
| Family: | Thymelaeaceae |
| Genus: | Pimelea |
| Species: | P. trichostachya |
| Binomial name | |
| Pimelea trichostachya | |
Pimelea trichostachya, commonly known as annual riceflower, spiked riceflower[2] or flax weed,[3] is a species of flowering plant in the family Thymelaeaceae and is endemic to continental Australia. It is a slender, semi-woody, annual shrub with narrowly elliptic or linear leaves and densely hairy, white or yellow flowers and green, purple-tinged fruit. It is toxic to livestock.
Pimelea trichostachya is a slender, erect, sem-woody annual shrub that typically grows to a height of up to 75 cm (30 in) and has hairy stems. The leaves are arranged alternately and are narrowly elliptic or linear, 4–19 mm (0.16–0.75 in) long and 0.5–5 mm (0.020–0.197 in) wide. The leaves are glabrous or sparsely hairy. The flowers are arranged in head-like spikes about 10 mm (0.39 in) long and wide, on the ends of branchlets on a peduncle up to 19 mm (0.75 in) long, each flower on a hairy pedicel. The flowers are bisexual, white or yellow and densely covered with long, spreading hairs. Flowering occurs in most months with a peak from August to December and the fruit is green with a purplish tinge and about 3 mm (0.12 in) long.[2][4][5][6][7][8]
Taxonomy
Pimelea trichostachya was first formally described in 1848 by John Lindley in Thomas Mitchell's Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia.[9][10] The specific epithet (trichostachya) means "hairy flower-spike".[11]