Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Hibbertia ericifolia
Common name
Hairy guinea flower
Family
Dilleniaceae
Where found
subsp. acutifolia: Woodland and heath. Coast and ranges north from the Wollongong area.
subsp. ericifolia: Woodland, rocky slopes, and floodplains. Coastal, mainly south from Pambula. Ranges, tablelands, ACT, the mountains to the west, and Kosciuszko National Park. Occasional elsewhere.
Notes
Shrub to 0.5 m high, spreading to sprawling. Stems wiry to rigid, with pronounced ridges running down from the leaf bases, sparsely to moderately hairy with simple hairs, rarely with forked hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see). Leaves alternating up the stems, 0.13–1.42 cm long, 0.5-1 mm wide, surfaces sparsely hairy, warty, margins rolled down, lower surface exposed or not, with a usually more or less recessed central vein, often with rows of teeth between it and the margins. Flowers with 5 yellow petals each to 15.8 mm long. Stamens 10-15, surrounding the carpels. Carpels 3, hairy. Outer calyx lobes ridged at least at the tips, hairy to hairless. Inner calyx lobes appressed hairy to hairless. Flowers single, on stalks 2-5 mm long, at the tops of the stems. Flowering: spring to autumn.
Hibbertia serpyllifolia and Hibbertia ericifolia in PlantNET (accessed 1 May 2021). According to the Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria (accessed 1 May 2021) Hibbertia serpyllifolia only occurs in Queensland. The species in NSW is Hibbertia ericifolia..
subsp. acutifolia: Central vein usually more than twice as broad as the rolled down margins. Leaf tips pointed, rarely slightly curved down. Main bract below the flowers 3.2-7.8 mm long, 1.3-2.3 mm wide. Inner calyx lobes almost hairless with forked to stalked stellate hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see) especially towards the tips.
subsp. ericifolia: Central vein up to twice as broad as the rolled down margins. Leaf tips blunt with the end of the central vein more or less bent sharply down. Main bract below the flowers 1.3-3.6 mm long, 0.1-0.4 mm wide. Inner calyx lobes almost hairless to hairy, with simple, rarely forked, hairs.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
Description based on Toelken, H.R. (2013), Notes on Hibbertia subg. Hemistemma (Dilleniaceae) 9. The eastern Australian H. vestita group, including H. pedunculata and H. serpyllifolia. Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens 26: 41-44
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