Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Commersonia prostrata
Common name
Dwarf kerrawang
Family
Malvaceae
Where found
Dry forest, grassy woodland, shrubland, disturbed sites, swamp margins, and ephemeral wetlands. Between east of Bungendore and near Picton.
Notes
Prostrate shrub to 0.05 m tall, forming mats to more than 1 m in diameter. Stems sparsely stellate hairy (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see). Leaves alternating along the stems, 1-6 cm long, 5-25 mm wide, upper surface mainly smooth or scarcely wrinkly, almost hairless with scattered, stiff, stellate hairs above smaller stellate hairs, lower surface with medium dense to tomentose white stellate hairs above smaller stellate hairs, margins irregularly toothed with small teeth, scarcely or strongly curved down; tips pointed. Juvenile leaves scarcely 3-lobed. Flowers with 5 petals, white, turning pale pink with age, each 1.5-3 mm long, in clusters of 3 to many flowers. Flowers Spring.
Was Rulingia prostrata.
Family was Sterculiaceae.
Endangered Australia. Endangered NSW. Provisions of the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 No 63 relating to the protection of protected plants generally also apply to plants that are a threatened species.
Endangered Vic. Listed in the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, Vic.
NSW Threatened Species profile with photos: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedSpeciesApp/profile.aspx?id=10736 (accessed 4 January, 2021)
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Commersonia~prostrata (accessed 4 January, 2021)
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