''Westringia acifolia'' is a flowering plant in the family

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 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 ...

to Western Australia. It is a compact shrub with linear to needle-shaped leaves and white to cream flowers.

Description

''Westringia acifolia'' is an upright, thickly branched shrub to high, the stems in cross section are more or less circular. The leaves are arranged opposite in crowded whorls, long, wide, linear to needle-shaped, simple surface hairs, margins curved under, apex sharply pointed, petiole long. The flowers are white to cream, the corolla long with simple hairs, and the

style Style is a manner of doing or presenting things and may refer to: * Architectural style, the features that make a building or structure historically identifiable * Design, the process of creating something * Fashion, a prevailing mode of clothing ...

long. The

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 ...

long with occasional simple hairs. The calyx has 5 lobes, long and simple, scattered hairs. The petals are oblong shaped, long, wide, the edges smooth or widely toothed and the apex rounded. Flowering occurs in December.

Taxonomy and naming

''Westringia acifolia'' was first formally described in 2009 by Greg Guerin and the description was published in ''

Australian Systematic Botany ''Australian Systematic Botany'' is an international peer-reviewed scientific journal published by CSIRO Publishing. It is devoted to publishing original research, and sometimes review articles, on topics related to systematic botany, such as bio ...

''.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 ...

(''acifolia'') means "sharp leaved".

Distribution and habitat

This species grows in heath on brown clay and sand in the

Avon Wheatbelt The Avon Wheatbelt is a bioregion in Western Australia. It has an area of . It is considered part of the larger Southwest Australia savanna ecoregion. Geography The Avon Wheatbelt bioregion is mostly a gently undulating landscape with low reli ...

IBRA The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) is a biogeographic regionalisation of Australia developed by the Australian government's Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population, and Communities. It was devel ...

bioregion A bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a biogeographic realm, but larger than an ecoregion or an ecosystem, in the World Wide Fund for Nature classification scheme. There is also an attempt to use the ...

of south-west Australia.

References

{{Taxonbar, from= Q51050290 acifolia Lamiales of Australia Eudicots of Western Australia Plants described in 2009