Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
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Astrotricha ledifolia
Common starhair
Araliaceae
Forest and woodland, often on rocky or in disturbed situations. Widspread. Rare on the coast, ranges, and Western Slopes.
Shrub to 1.5 m high. Branchlets stellate hairy (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), felted. Leaves alternating up the stems, 1.3–4.5 cm long, 3–8 mm wide, upper surface rough, granular with the small grains usually evenly distributed, just detectable with a fingernail, and occasionally also with larger rounded conical projections to 0.3 mm high, sometimes the projections confined to near the margins, lower surface with a firm covering of hairs, margins entire; tips blunt. Flowers 4-5 mm in diameter, with 5 petals, creamy-green to white. Purple-flowered populations are known from the mountains in the ACT. Flowers in many-branched clusters, 2.5–15 cm long or more, sometimes forming more than half the height of the plant. Flowers Spring to Summer.
Rare Vic.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Astrotricha~ledifolia (accessed 4 January, 2021)
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