Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Cryptandra propinqua subsp. propinqua

Flowering stems. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Eurobodalla Regional Botanic Gardens north of Moruya

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, near Vincentia

Common name

Silky cryptandra

Family

Rhamnaceae

Where found

Heath on rocky outcrops and in gullies. Coast and ranges north from Bermagui.

Notes

Shrub to 1.5 m high. Young branches densely stellate-hairy (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), sometimes also with sparse simple hairs. Leaves in clusters and alternating up the stems, 0.1–1.1 cm long, 0.4-2.2 mm wide, margins rolled down; tips pointed, blunt, or occasionally with a short mucro; upper surface hairless, smooth or often warty, lower surface partly visible or not visible, densely grey-stellate-hairy, sometimes becoming hairless. Flowers white or cream, sometimes pinkish with age, tubular, the tube 1.2-2.5 mm long, with 5 erect or spreading lobes each 2-3.3 mm long. Bracts covering the bases of the flowers light brown. Flowers in clusters of 1-10. Flowers Autumn-Spring.

Cryptandra propinqua in PlantNET.

Description above based on Kellermann, J. & Udovicic, F., (2007) A revision of the Cryptandra propinqua complex (Rhamnaceae: Pomaderreae). Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 128: 83, 85-86 Fig. 1

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Cryptandra~propinqua (accessed 30 April 2021)

Note that this description is unchanged from that in Harden, GJ (ed.) (1990) Flora of New South Wales Volume 1, page 371, dating from before Cryptandra propinqua and Cryptandra speciosa were separated.