''Streptoglossa macrocephala'' is a species of flowering plant in the family

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

. It is a spreading or upright perennial herb with pink to purple flowers. It grows in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Description

''Streptoglossa macrocephala '' is an upright perennial herb or shrub to high. The leaves and branches are strongly fragrant, and covered with soft, weak, separated thin hairs to almost smooth, thickly glandular and occasionally shiny. The leaves are oblong-lance shaped, egg-shaped or elliptic, long, wide, stem clasping or rarely gradually narrowing at the base, margins smooth or toothed or slightly lobed, and rounded or pointed at the apex. The pink to purple "flowers" are sometimes covered by upper leaves, florets in a group of 60-100. Flowering occurs from July to September and the fruit is dry, one-seeded, long, ribbed and covered in silky, flattened hairs.

Taxonomy and naming

''Streptoglossa macrocephala'' was first described by

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (german: Müller; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Vict ...

as ''Pluchea macrocephala''. In 1981

Clyde Robert Dunlop Clyde may refer to: People * Clyde (given name) * Clyde (surname) Places For townships see also Clyde Township Australia * Clyde, New South Wales * Clyde, Victoria * Clyde River, New South Wales Canada * Clyde, Alberta * Clyde, Ontario, a to ...

changed the name to ''Streptoglossa macrocephala'' and the description was published in ''

Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Garden The Adelaide Botanic Garden is a public garden at the north-east corner of the Adelaide city centre, in the Adelaide Park Lands. It encompasses a fenced garden on North Terrace (between Lot Fourteen, the site of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital ...

''. 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 ...

(''macrocephala'') means "large headed".

Distribution and habitat

This streptoglossa grows in red sand, limestone, and dunes of the

Tanami Desert The Tanami Desert is a desert in northern Australia, situated in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. It has a rocky terrain with small hills, and cacti. The Tanami was the Northern Territory's final frontier and was not fully explored b ...

in the Northern Territory, the

Gibson Desert The Gibson Desert is a large desert in Western Australia, largely in an almost "pristine" state. It is about in size, making it the fifth largest desert in Australia, after the Great Victoria, Great Sandy, Tanami and Simpson deserts. The ...

and

Great Sandy Desert The Great Sandy Desert is an interim Australian bioregion,IBRA Version 6.1
data

of Western Australia. Also scattered locations on rocky or sandy soils from the

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia * Kimberley (Western Australia) ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Kimberley * Kimberley Warm Springs, Tasmania * Kimberley, Tasmania a small town * County of Kimberley, a ...

Shark Bay Shark Bay (Malgana: ''Gathaagudu'', "two waters") is a World Heritage Site in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/world/shark-bay area is located approximately north of Perth, on the ...

in Western Australia and from

Tennant Creek Tennant Creek ( wrm, Jurnkkurakurr) is town located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the seventh largest town in the Northern Territory, and is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with the western termin ...

in the Northern Territory to western Queensland.

References

` {{Taxonbar, from=Q15554637 Asterales of Australia Flora of the Northern Territory Flora of Western Australia Flora of Queensland macrocephala