''Pimelea pauciflora'', commonly known as poison rice-flower, is a species of shrub 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 ...

. It has small yellow-lime flowers and green, smooth fleshy leaves, 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 ...

Eastern Australia The eastern states of Australia are the states adjoining the east continental coastline of Australia. These are the mainland states of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and the island state of Tasmania. The Australian Capital Territory ...

Description

''Pimelea pauciflora'' is a small

dioecious 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 ...

shrub that typically grows to a height of and has smooth, long, reddish stems. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs along the branches, and are glossy green, smooth, and narrowly linear or linear to lance shaped, long, wide on a short petiole. The flowers are yellowish-green and arranged in clusters of 3 to 9, mostly at the end of branches usually surrounded by 2 green, narrowly elliptic to egg-shaped involucral bracts. The flowers are smooth and unisexual, the male flowers long, and the female flowers about long. The leaf-like overlapping flower

bracts 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 ...

, usually 2, egg-shaped to narrow elliptic, long, wide, smooth and green. The fruit is a succulent red berry, about wide and as the fruit develop the sepals and petals fall off. Flowering occurs from September to November.

Taxonomy and naming

''Pimelea pauciflora'' was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown and the description was published in ''

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 ...

(''pauciflora'') 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 ...

''pauci''- meaning "few" and -''florus'' meaning "flowered".

Distribution and habitat

Poison rice-flower is found growing in open scrubland, forests, sometimes in dense thickets at higher altitudes south from

Queanbeyan Queanbeyan ( ) is a city in the south-eastern region of New South Wales, Australia, located adjacent to the Australian Capital Territory in the Southern Tablelands region. Located on the Queanbeyan River, the city is the council seat of the ...

in New South Wales. In

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

it grows near mountain streams in a few scattered locations. It also occurs in a few places in north-eastern Tasmania.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17582298 pauciflora Malvales of Australia Flora of New South Wales Flora of Tasmania Flora of Victoria (state) Taxa named by Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773) Dioecious plants Plants described in 1810