''Kunzea salina'' is a species of flowering plant in the myrtle 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 the south of Western Australia. It is a low, spreading, densely branched shrub with leaves mostly arranged in opposite pairs and usually two sessile pale pink to white flowers arranged at the base of new shoots. It only grows near the edge of certain salt lakes.

Description

''Kunzea salina'' is a much-branched shrub that grows to a height of up to and spreads to about across. The leaves are mostly arranged in opposite pairs, linear to lance-shaped or elliptic, long and wide. The flowers are usually arranged in pairs, sometimes in groups of up to six at the base of new shoots. There are

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 and bracteoles at the base of the flowers and the

floral cup In angiosperms, a hypanthium or floral cup is a structure where basal portions of the calyx, the corolla, and the stamens form a cup-shaped tube. It is sometimes called a floral tube, a term that is also used for corolla tube and calyx tube. It ...

is about long at flowering time. The sepal lobes are egg-shaped to triangular, long with a pointed tip. The

petal Petals are modified Leaf, leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often advertising coloration, brightly colored or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the ''c ...

s are pale pink to white, broadly egg-shaped to almost round and about twice the size of the sepals. There are between sixteen and nineteen

stamen The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filame ...

s arranged in two

whorls A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). Whorls in nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral d ...

. Flowering mainly occurs between November and February but depends on rainfall. The fruit is an urn-shaped capsule with the sepal lobes attached.

Taxonomy and naming

This species was first formally described in 1983 by Malcolm Trudgen and

Greg Keighery Greg is a masculine given name, and often a shortened form of the given name Gregory. Greg (more commonly spelled " Gregg") is also a surname. People with the name *Greg Abbott (disambiguation), multiple people *Greg Abel (born 1961/1962), Canadi ...

who gave it the name ''Angasomyrtus salina'' and published the description in the journal '' Nuytsia''. The genus ''Angasomyrtus'' was named after the co-discoverer, Angas Hopkins, who is known for his work on the ecology and conservation of Western Australian flora. Following phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequences,

Peter de Lange Peter de Lange (23 March 1988) is a Dutch association football player in the forward position. He is a resident of Rotterdam. Club career De Lange played in Barendrecht, Willem II, SBV Excelsior, Barendrecht, VV Capelle, and Spakenburg. From 201 ...

and Hellmut Toelken changed the name to ''Kunzea salina''. 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 ...

(''salina'') refers to the

saline Saline may refer to: * Saline (medicine), a liquid with salt content to match the human body * Saline water, non-medicinal salt water * Saline, a historical term (especially US) for a salt works or saltern Places * Saline, Calvados, a commune in ...

habitat of this species.

Distribution and habitat

''Kunzea salina'' grows in white sand dunes over clay at the edges of small

playa Playa (plural playas) may refer to: Landforms * Endorheic basin, also known as a sink, alkali flat or sabkha, a desert basin with no outlet which periodically fills with water to form a temporary lake * Dry lake, often called a ''playa'' in the so ...

lakes north of Esperance in the Esperance Plains and Mallee

biogeographic regions A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions. De ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17595622 salina Endemic flora of Western Australia Myrtales of Australia Rosids of Western Australia Plants described in 1983 Taxa named by Malcolm Eric Trudgen Taxa named by Gregory John Keighery