''Spyridium coactilifolium'', commonly known as butterfly spyridium, is a species of flowering plant in the family

Rhamnaceae The Rhamnaceae are a large family of flowering plants, mostly trees, shrubs, and some vines, commonly called the buckthorn family. Rhamnaceae is included in the order Rosales. The family contains about 55 genera and 950 species. The Rhamnaceae h ...

. It has white-velvety flowers and oval shaped leaves that are thickly covered in soft hairs.

Description

''Spyridium coactilifolium'' is a small perennial shrub with rusty-coloured short, matted, dense hairs on the branches. The leaves are oval to egg-shaped, rounded at the base, blunt and notched at the apex, long and densely covered with soft, star-shaped hairs. The flower petals are velvety-white, usually 4 or 5, entire or notched at the apex and about long. The

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 are silky, brown, and egg-shaped with small hairs on the margins. Flowering occurs from December to February and the fruit is a brown capsule, egg-shaped with the narrower end at the base, hard, thin, brittle, smooth except near the base.

Taxonomy and naming

''Spyridium coactilifolium'' was first formally described in 1858 by

Siegfried Reisseck Siegfried Reissek (11 April 1819 in Teschen – 9 November 1871 in Vienna) was an Austrian naturalist and botanist who specialized in spermatophytes. He is known for his studies involving plant anatomy and histology. From 1837 to 1841 he was ...

and the description was published in ''Linnaea: ein Journal für die Botanik in ihrem ganzen Umfange, oder Beiträge zur Pflanzenkunde''.

Distribution and habitat

Butterfly spyridium mostly grows on rocky sea cliffs in low shrubland, and inland on sloping sites in sandy soils in low, open woodland in the

Encounter Bay Encounter Bay is a bay in the Australian state of South Australia located on the state's south central coast about south of the state capital of Adelaide. It was named by Matthew Flinders after his encounter on 8 April 1802 with Nicolas Baud ...

area on

Fleurieu Peninsula The Fleurieu Peninsula () is a peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia located south of the state capital of Adelaide. History Before British colonisation of South Australia, the western side of the peninsula was occupied by the K ...

in South Australia.

Conservation status

''Spyridium coactilifolium'' is classified as "vulnerable" by the ''

National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 Protected areas of South Australia consists of protected areas located within South Australia and its immediate onshore waters and which are managed by South Australian Government agencies. As of March 2018, South Australia contains 359 sepa ...

'' in South Australia.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17241722 coactilifolium Rosales of Australia Flora of South Australia