''Dampiera stricta'' commonly known as blue dampiera, is a flowering plant in the family

Goodeniaceae Goodeniaceae is a family (biology), family of flowering plants in the Order (biology), order Asterales. It contains about 404 species in twelve genera. The family is distributed mostly in Australia, except for the genus ''Scaevola (plant), Scaevo ...

. It is a small sub-shrub with variable leaves and mostly blue, mauve or purple flowers.

Description

''Dampiera stricta'' is an erect, slender, subshrub growing to about with ribbed, triangular, smooth or becoming smooth stems. The leaves are variable, mostly narrow-elliptic or lance-shaped, long, wide, margins smooth or toothed and

sessile Sessility, or sessile, may refer to: * Sessility (motility), organisms which are not able to move about * Sessility (botany), flowers or leaves that grow directly from the stem or peduncle of a plant * Sessility (medicine), tumors and polyps that ...

. The flowers are borne in leaf axils either singly or in pairs, up to long,

pedicels In botany, a pedicel is a stem that attaches a single flower to the inflorescence. Such inflorescences are described as ''pedicellate''. Description Pedicel refers to a structure connecting a single flower to its inflorescence. In the absenc ...

long and the small linear

bracts In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

long. The corolla is long, blue to purple with a whitish centre, rusty coloured hairs on the outside, wings wide, upper petals smaller and the

sepals A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coined b ...

long. Flowering occurs mainly from August to January and the fruit is a rounded oblong shape, long, ribbed and covered in rusty coloured hairs.

Taxonomy and naming

''Dampiera stricta'' was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown and the description was published in ''

Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen ''Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen'' (Prodromus of the Flora of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land) is a flora of Australia written by botanist Robert Brown and published in 1810. Often referred to as ''Prodromus Flora Novae ...

''.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 ...

(''stricta'') means "straight" or "erect".

Distribution and habitat

Blue dampiera is a common species usually growing in open forest and heath on sandy, gravel or loamy soils in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria on the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills, that runs rough ...

and coastal locations.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5212946 stricta Flora of New South Wales Flora of Queensland Flora of Tasmania Flora of Victoria (Australia) Endemic flora of Australia