''Commersonia hermanniifolia'', commonly known as wrinkled kerrawang, is a species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae and is endemic to New South Wales. It is a prostrate or trailing shrub with oblong to lance-shaped leaves that are paler on the lower surface, and flowers with five white sepals fading to pink and five pinkish petals.

Description

''Commersonia hermanniifolia'' is a prostrate or trailing shrub with stems up to long, that spread across the ground and are often pendent down sandstone rock faces. The adult leaves are oblong to lance-shaped, long and wide on a petiole up to long. The leaves have irregular, wavy edges and are wrinkled on the upper surface, paler on the densely hairy lower surface. Juvenile plants and those recovering from fire are sometimes larger than adult leaves and have a petiole long. The flowers have five white, petal-like sepals about long and five inconspicuous white petals that turn pink as they age. The stamens are dark red and there are five white

staminode In botany, a staminode is an often rudimentary, sterile or abortive stamen, which means that it does not produce pollen.Jackson, Benjamin, Daydon; ''A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Derivation and Accent''; Published by Gerald Duckworth & Co. ...

s surrounding the central stye. Flowering occurs in spring and the fruit is a deep red capsule about long in diameter.

Taxonomy

''Commersonia hermanniifolia'' was first formally described in 1823 by Carl Sigismund Kunth in ''Nova Genera et Species Plantarum'' from an unpublished description by Jaques Étienne Gay. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

(''hermanniifolia'') means "''

Hermannia ''Hermannia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the mallow family, Malvaceae. It comprises at least 65 species with many more species as yet unresolved. The genus commemorates Prof. Paul Hermann (1646-1695), a German professor of botany at Ley ...

''-leaved", referring to another genus in the family Malvaceae.

Distribution and habitat

Wrinkled kerrawang is a rare species mostly growing in coastal heath on sandstone cliffs or in gullies between

Broken Bay Broken Bay, a semi-mature tide-dominated drowned valley estuary, is a large inlet of the Tasman Sea located about north of Sydney central business district on the coast of New South Wales, Australia; being one of the bodies of water that separa ...

and Jervis Bay and along the

Shoalhaven River The Shoalhaven River is a perennial river that rises from the Southern Tablelands and flows into an open mature wave dominated barrier estuary near Nowra on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. Location and features The Shoalhaven ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17579761 hermanniifolia Flora of New South Wales Plants described in 1823 Taxa named by Carl Sigismund Kunth