''Scaevola pulchella'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Goodeniaceae. It is a small, spreading shrub with blue to mauve flowers borne on terminal spikes and is endemic to Western Australia.

Description

''Scaevola pulchella'' is a decumbent to prostrate much-branched perennial herb or shrub to high. The stems are slender, more or less ridged and covered with silvery, long, spreading, soft hairs. The leaves are sessile, linear to elliptic to oblong-lance shaped, long, wide, margins usually smooth to finely toothed, covered with more or less thick simple hairs, and the larger leaves rounded with a point. The flowers are borne in terminal spikes up to long, bracteoles narrowly linear to elliptic, long with clearly visible silky hairs in the leaf axils. The blue-mauve

corolla Corolla may refer to: *Corolla (botany), the petals of a flower, considered as a unit *Toyota Corolla, an automobile model name * Corolla (headgear), an ancient headdress in the form of a circlet or crown * ''Corolla'' (gastropod), a genus of moll ...

is long with simple hairs on the outer surface and more or less bearded on the inside and the flowers fan-shaped. Flowering occurs from June to October and the fruit is ellipsoidal to globe-shaped up to in diameter covered with simple hairs.

Taxonomy naming

''Scaevola pulchella'' was first formally described in 1990 by Roger Charles Carolin and the description was published in '' Telopea''. 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 ...

(''pulchella'') means "beautiful and small".

Distribution and habitat

This scaevola grows on the spinifex plains near Carnarvon and east of

Exmouth Gulf Exmouth Gulf is a gulf in the north-west of Western Australia. It lies between North West Cape and the main coastline of Western Australia. It is considered to be part of the Pilbara Coast and Northwest Shelf, and the Carnarvon Basin geologi ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17480666

pulchella ''Pulchella'' is a diatom genus in the family Naviculaceae. Species the genus contains seven described species. *''Pulchella baicalensis'' *''Pulchella kriegeriana'' *''Pulchella minutissima'' *''Pulchella obsita'' *''Pulchella schwabei'' *'' ...

Flora of Western Australia