Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Cryptandra amara
Common name
Bitter cryptandra, Pretty cryptandra, Sweet cryptandra
Family
Rhamnaceae
Where found
Forest, woodland, and heath. Widespread.
Notes
Shrub to 1 m high or nearly prostrate. Branchlets hairy with fine stellate hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), often with spiny tips. Leaves alternating up the stems or clustered, 0.2–0.6 cm long, 1–3 mm wide, more or less cylindrical to flat, both surfaces hairless or sometimes lower surface hairy, margins flat or curved down. Sometimes leafless. Flowers 2-6 mm long, white, sometimes turning red with age, tubular, with 5 lobes. Bracts at the base of the flower tube short, brown. Flowers usually crowded at the ends of the branchlets, single or in clusters of 2-10 flowers. Flowers Autumn to Spring.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Cryptandra~amara (accessed 13 April 2021)
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