Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Dampiera purpurea

Flower and leaf. Australian Plant Image Index, Photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, Buckenbowra State Forest, NW of Batemans Bay

Common name

Mountain dampiera

Family

Goodeniaceae

Where found

Forest, heath, and rocky areas. Coast and ranges north from Deua National Park. Western Slopes. Occasionally on the tablelands, particularly near and east of Goulburn.

Notes

Shrub to 1 m high. Stems cylindrical, ribbed, white- or golden-hairy with branched hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), to rough. Leaves alternating up the stems, 0.9–6 cm long, 5–42 mm wide, margins entire or toothed, upper surface hairless and often rough when mature, lower surface usually grey or rarely golden-brown hairy. Flowers purple to blue inside, grey- to black-hairy outside, 12–15 mm long, tubular, the tube slit on the lower side, 2-lipped, with 5 lobes. Flowering branches 1–9 together, 3–5-flowered, usually covered with brownish to golden branched hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see). Flowering: chiefly August–January. Seed cases 4–5 mm long, hairy, ribbed beneath the hairs.

Rare Vic.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Dampiera~purpurea (accessed 9 January, 2021)