''Homoranthus tricolor'', is a flowering plant in the family

Myrtaceae Myrtaceae, the myrtle family, is a family of dicotyledonous plants placed within the order Myrtales. Myrtle, pōhutukawa, bay rum tree, clove, guava, acca (feijoa), allspice, and eucalyptus are some notable members of this group. All speci ...

and is endemic to a small area in south-east Queensland. It is an upright shrub with linear to lance-shaped leaves and green, red and black flowers arranged singly or in pairs in upper leaf

axil A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, st ...

Description

''Homoranthus tricolor'' is an upright, spreading shrub to high. It has grey, slightly lined, fibrous bark near the base of older plants. The leaves are linear to narrowly oblong-lance shaped, long, wide, green to grey-green, distinct occasional oil glands, margins entire, apex acute or ending in a sharp short point, and the petiole long. The inflorescence consists usually of one or rarely two flowers borne in upper leaf axils,

bract 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 ...

s usually green with white or red margins, long, wide with a rounded apex. The pendulous, cylindrical shaped flowers have elliptic-shaped dark purple to black petals near the base, light green on the margins and toward the apex. Each of the five black sepals are long and wide. The creamy-white styles are long, straight or curved toward the end. There have been sightings of flowers in September only, but may flower into October.

Taxonomy and naming

''Homoranthus tricolor'' was first formally described in 2009 by

Anthony Bean Anthony Russell Bean (born 1957) is an Australian botanist who works at the Queensland Herbarium and Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha. Since 1982, he has led the Eucalyptus Study Group of the Society for Growing Australian Plants. Care ...

from a specimen he collected south-west of Mundubbera in 2008. The description was published in ''Austrobaileya''. 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 ...

(''tricolor'') refers to the three-coloured flowers.

Distribution and habitat

This homoranthus grows in shrubby woodland on a sandstone ridge. It is only known from a single population near Mundubbera.

Conservation status

A rare species, currently known from a single population which is subjected to occasional grazing. Criteria of Briggs and Leigh (1996) a ROTAP conservation code of 2E appropriate. IUCN (2010) considered endangered.

References

External links

The Australasian Virtual Herbarium – Occurrence data for ''Homoranthus tricolor''
tricolor Flora of Queensland Plants described in 2009 Myrtales of Australia {{Australia-rosid-stub