''Hemiphora bartlingii'', commonly known as woolly dragon, is a

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

in the mint

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Lamiaceae and is endemic to the

south-west The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. It is an erect shrub with branches covered with greyish, rusty-coloured hairs, leaves with a blistered appearance and with white, pink or purple flowers over an extended period.

Description

''Hemiphora bartlingii'' is shrub which grows to a height of about and has branches that are densely covered with greyish, rusty-coloured hairs. The leaves are linear to lance-shaped, but often appear almost cylindrical because their edges are strongly turned under. The leaves are long, wide with a blistered upper surface and a hairy lower surface. The flowers are arranged singly or in groups of up to three in leaf axils near the ends of the branches, on woolly stalks long. The flowers are surrounded by leafy, linear to lance-shaped, woolly bracts and

bracteoles 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 o ...

which are densely woolly on the outer surface, less so on the inner side. The bracts are long and longer than the

sepal 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 coine ...

s. The five sepals are long, linear to lance-shaped, woolly on their outer surface and joined to form a short tube near their bases. The petals are long and joined for most of their length to form a broad tube which is white, pink or purple with purple spots inside. The outside of the petal tube has a few short hairs but

glabrous Glabrousness (from the Latin '' glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...

on the inside except for a narrow ring of hairs around the ovary. There are five lobes on the end of the tube, the lower, central lobe elliptic to almost round, long and wide and much larger than the other lobes which are a similar size and shape to each other. The four stamens are shorter than the tube, the lower pair slightly longer than the upper ones. Flowering occurs in most months and the fruit is oval-shaped and with the sepals remaining attached. Hemiphora bartlingii - Kevin Thiele

Taxonomy and naming

This species was first formally described in 1844 by Johann Lehmann and given the name ''Chloanthes bartlingii''. The description was published in ''Delectus Seminum quae in Horto Hamburgensium botanico e collectione''. In 1870

George Bentham George Bentham (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884) was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studie ...

changed the name to ''Pityrodia bartlingii'' and in 2011,

Barry Conn Barry John Conn (Barry Conn, born 1948), is an Australian botanist. He was awarded a Ph.D. from Adelaide University in 1982 for work on ''Prostanthera''. Career Conn's first appointment as a botanist was with the Lae Herbarium in 1974. H ...

, Murray Henwood and Nicola Streiber changed it to the present name. The specific epithet (''bartlingii'') honours the German botanist

Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling (December 9, 1798 – November 20, 1875) was a German botanist who was a native of Hanover. He studied natural sciences at the University of Göttingen, and in 1818 took a botanical journey through Hungary and Croatia ...

Distribution

Woolly dragon mostly occurs to the north of

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

but is found between Busselton and the Murchison River, sometimes as far east as Yellowdine. It grows in sandy

kwongan Kwongan is plant community found in south-western Western Australia. The name is a Bibbelmun (Noongar) Aboriginal term of wide geographical use defined by Beard (1976) as Kwongan has replaced other terms applied by European botanists such as ...

and woodland in the

Geraldton Sandplains Geraldton (Wajarri: ''Jambinu'', Wilunyu: ''Jambinbirri'') is a coastal city in the Mid West region of the Australian state of Western Australia, north of the state capital, Perth. At June 2018, Geraldton had an urban population of 37,648. ...

, Swan Coastal Plain,

Avon Wheatbelt The Avon Wheatbelt is a bioregion in Western Australia. It has an area of . It is considered part of the larger Southwest Australia savanna ecoregion. Geography The Avon Wheatbelt bioregion is mostly a gently undulating landscape with low reli ...

Jarrah Forest Jarrah forest is tall open forest in which the dominant overstory tree is ''Eucalyptus marginata'' (jarrah). The ecosystem occurs only in the Southwest Botanical Province of Western Australia. It is most common in the biogeographic region named i ...

and Mallee biogeographic regions.

Conservation

''Hemiphora bartlingii'' is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government

Department of Parks and Wildlife The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and e ...

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q28812164 bartlingii Plants described in 1844 Flora of Western Australia Taxa named by Johann Georg Christian Lehmann