''Pimelea glauca'', commonly known as smooth riceflower, is a species of flowering plant in the family

Thymelaeaceae The Thymelaeaceae are a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants composed of 50 genera (listed below) and 898 species.Zachary S. Rogers (2009 onwards)A World Checklist of Thymelaeaceae (version 1) Missouri Botanical Garden Website, St. Louis. It ...

and is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to eastern Australia. It has elliptic to more or less lance-shaped or linear leaves and creamy-white flowers arranged in heads of seven or more on the ends of the stems, with four lance-shaped to egg-shaped

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 at the base of the

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

Description

''Pimelea glauca'' is a much-branched shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has

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 ...

stems. The leaves are narrowly elliptic to lance-shaped or linear, long and wide ending with a short, downward curving, sharp point. The

consists of 7 to 35 creamy-white tube-shaped flowers long arranged in dense clusters at the ends of the branches. The clusters are surrounded by 4 lance-shaped to egg-shaped involucral bracts long and wide. The bracts are smooth on the outside, hairy on the inside and have fringed edges. Flowering mainly occurs from August to December and the fruit is about long. The plant is toxic to livestock.

Taxonomy and naming

''Pimelea glauca'' was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown in the ''

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 ...

''glauca'' is from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word ''glaucus'' meaning having bluish-grey or green colour, referring to the leaves of this species.

Distribution and habitat

Smooth riceflower grows in open forest, grassland, coastal heath and on dunes, in sandy soil. It is found in Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. It is widespread in N.S.W., the A.C.T., Victoria and Tasmania. In South Australia it occurs in the south-east of the state, including on the Eyre and

Yorke Peninsula The Yorke Peninsula is a peninsula located northwest and west of Adelaide in South Australia, between Spencer Gulf on the west and Gulf St Vincent on the east. The peninsula is separated from Kangaroo Island to the south by Investigator Strai ...

s, and on

Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island, also known as Karta Pintingga (literally 'Island of the Dead' in the language of the Kaurna people), is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest ...

References

External links

''Pimelea glauca'' occurrence data
from the

Australasian Virtual Herbarium The ''Australasian Virtual Herbarium'' (AVH) is an online resource that allows access to plant specimen data held by various Australian and New Zealand herbaria. It is part of the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), and was formed by the amalgamat ...

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17582329 glauca Flora of Queensland Flora of New South Wales Flora of the Australian Capital Territory Flora of Victoria (Australia) Flora of Tasmania Flora of South Australia Plants described in 1810 Taxa named by Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773)