''Pimelea hewardiana'', commonly known as forked rice-flower, 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 south-eastern continental Australia. It is a shrub with narrowly elliptic leaves and head-like clusters of 7 to 34

unisexual Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

yellow flowers.

Description

''Pimelea hewardiana'' is a shrub that typically grows to a height of , it young stems covered with short hairs. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, narrowly elliptic to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long, wide on a short petiole. The lower surface of the leaves is paler than the upper surface. The flowers are arranged on the ends of branches or in leaf axils in head-like, compact clusters of 7 to 34, surrounded by 4 glabrous, leaf-like involucral bracts long and wide. The flowers are unisexual and yellow, the flower tube long, 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 coined b ...

s long, and the

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 in male flowers shorter than the sepals. Flowering mainly occurs from April to October.

Taxonomy

''Pimelea hewardiana'' was first formally described in 1854 by Carl Meissner in the journal ''Linnaea''. 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 ...

(''hewardiana'') honours the botanist, Robert Heward (1791–1877).

Distribution and habitat

Forked rice-flower grows in mallee shrubland, usually in rocky ground, from the Glenelg River to the

Bacchus Marsh Bacchus Marsh (Wathawurrung: ''Pullerbopulloke'') is an urban centre and suburban locality in Victoria, Australia located approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne and west of Melton, Victoria, Melton at a near equidistance to th ...

area, west of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. It was formerly found in south-eastern South Australia, but is now considered to be extinct in that state.

Conservation status

This species is listed as "rare" on the Department of Sustainability and Environment's ''Advisory List of Rare Or Threatened Plants In Victoria''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q7194612 hewardiana Flora of South Australia Flora of Victoria (state) Malvales of Australia Plants described in 1854 Taxa named by Carl Meissner