''Pityrodia gilruthiana'' is a

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

in the mint

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Lamiaceae The Lamiaceae ( ) or Labiatae are a family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint, deadnettle or sage family. Many of the plants are aromatic in all parts and include widely used culinary herbs like basil, mint, rosemary, sage, savory ...

and is endemic to

Arnhem Land Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia, with the term still in use. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territory capital, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Compan ...

in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

. It is a dark green, spreading shrub with sticky, glandular branches and leaves and fragrant, off-white, bell-like flowers with purple stripes on the end.

Description

''Pityrodia gilruthiana'' is a spreading shrub which grows to a height of about and which has branches sticky due to the presence of branched, glandular hairs. The leaves are linear to narrow lance-shaped, glabrous but sticky, long, wide, darker green on the upper surface and have a prominent mid-vein on the lower surface. The flowers are fragrant and stalkless, arranged singly 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 ...

s with a leaf-like

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 ...

and leafy, narrow linear to lance-shaped sticky bracteoles long at their base. 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 are long and joined for less than half their length to form a bell-shaped tube with five lance-shaped lobes on the end. The lobes are lance-shaped, long, hairy and sticky except that the inside of the tubular part is glabrous. The five

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 long and joined to form an almost cylindrical tube long with five lobes on the end. The tube is off-white in colour with deep purple streaks on the upper lip. The lobes form two "lips" - the upper one with two lobes and the lower one longer with three lobes. The outer, top part of the tube has soft hairs but the rest is mostly glabrous apart from a dense hairy ring below 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. The lobes are more or less egg-shaped, the upper ones long and the lower ones are slightly longer and more spreading. The four stamens extend slightly beyond the end of the tube, the lower pair slightly longer than the other one. Flowering occurs in from February to August and is followed by an oval-shaped, hairy, fruit long.

Taxonomy and naming

''Pityrodia gilruthiana'' was first formally described in 1979 by

Ahmad Abid Munir Ahmad ( ar, أحمد, ʾAḥmad) is an Arabic male given name common in most parts of the Muslim world. Other spellings of the name include Ahmed and Ahmet. Etymology The word derives from the root (ḥ-m-d), from the Arabic (), from the ve ...

from a specimen collected near the Mount Gilruth in the Northern Territory. The description was published in ''Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens''.

Distribution

This pityrodia occurs in Arnhem Land near Mount Gilruth in the Kakadu National Park including the Arnhem Plateau and Pine Creek

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 ...

Conservation

''Pityrodia gilruthiana'' is classified as "least concern" under the

Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 2000 A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international relations, international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extr ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15350482 gilruthiana Plants described in 1979 Flora of the Northern Territory