Hemiphora Uncinata

''Hemiphora uncinata'' is a flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is an erect, spreading shrub with its branches densely covered with white, woolly hairs. Its leaves are rough and wrinkled and the flowers are tube-shaped with deep pink petals with wavy edges.

Description

''Hemiphora uncinata'' is an erect, spreading shrub which grows to a height of with its branches covered with white, cottony hairs. The leaves are linear to lance-shaped, long, wide, with their edges curved downwards or under and often have a hooked tip. The upper surface is rough and wrinkled with small blisters and the lower surface is covered with woolly hairs at least when young.

The flowers are deep pink and are arranged singly or in groups of up to three on woolly stalks long, in upper leaf axils. There are bracts long at the base of the flowers and which are glabrous on the inner surface and densely woolly outside, and there are shorter, glabrous bracteoles. The five sepals are long, and joined at their base to form a short tube. The sepals are woolly on the outside, linear to lance-shaped and remain attached to the plant after the petals have fallen. The petals are long and joined to form a wide tube long and wide at the top end. The petal tube has soft hairs on the outside but glabrous inside except for a densely hairy ring above the ovary. The five petal lobes form two "lips", the upper lip with two lobes joined for most of their length and the lower with three spreading lobes. The five lobes have wavy or irregularly notched edges and are roughly circular in shape, in diameter. The four stamens are shorter than the petal tube with the lower pair much longer than the upper pair. Flowering occurs in spring and the fruit is almost spherical, hairy, veiny and in diameter. This species is similar to '' Hemiphora exserta'' but has its stamens short and enclosed in the petal tube.

Taxonomy and naming

This species was first formally described in 1863 by Nikolai Turczaninow who gave it the name ''Chloanthes uncinata''. The description was published in ''Bulletin de la Société Impériale des Naturalistes de Moscou'' from a specimen collected by James Drummond. In 1870 George Bentham changed the name to ''Pityrodia uncinata'' and in 2011, Barry Conn, Murray Henwood and Nicola Streiber transferred four species, including this one, from the genus ''Pityrodia'' into ''Hemiphora''. The specific epithet (''uncinata'') is a Latin word meaning "hooked".

Distribution and habitat

''Hemiphora uncinata'' is mainly found in near-coastal areas between Perth and the Murchison River, but there are disjunct populations near Gairdner and between Hyden and Lake Cronin, in the Geraldton Sandplains and Swan Coastal Plain biogeographic regions where it grows in sandy clay in depressions that are sometimes flooded in winter.

Conservation

''Hemiphora uncinata'' is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.

References

External links

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image of ''Hemiphora uncinata''

{{Taxonbar, from=Q28428565

uncinata
Plants described in 1863
Flora of Western Australia
Taxa named by George Bentham