Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Hibbertia puberula

Common name

 A guinea flower

Family

Dilleniaceae

Where found

subsp. extensa:  Heath on rock shelves or upland swamps. Upper headwaters of Georges river and Wangandery Tableland.

subsp. glabrescens:  Remnant shrubland and grassland along a creek at Bankston airport, Sydney.

subsp. puberula:  Woodland, low heath, sometimes in rocky places. Wollemi National Park south to Morton National Park and east to near Nowra.

Notes

Shrub to 0.25 m high or sprawling. Stems wiry to stiff, the leaf bases continuing down the stems, more or less flanged, hairy, with simple hairs, sometimes becoming hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 0.12-0.8 cm long, 0.5-1.8 mm wide, margins rolled down, the recessed to bulging broader central vein obscuring the undersurface, surfaces sparsely hairy. Tufts of hairs at the bases of the leaves. Flowers with 5 yellow petals each 5.5–10.6 mm long. Stamens 4–18, on one side of the carpels. Carpels 2, hairy. Flowers single at the ends of the stems, rarely in clusters of up to 3 flowers at the bases of the leaves, stalks 0-3 mm long. Flowering: October – January.

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.

NSW Threatened Species profile:  http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedSpeciesApp/profile.aspx?id=10402 (accessed 6 January, 2021)

subsp. extensa:  Side branches usually spreading, at up to about right angles to the main axis. Stamens 4-7. Anthers 0.8-1.2 mm long. Outer calyx lobes 3.1-3.8 mm wide, margins more or less strongly curved down, with a distrinctly raised ridge towards the tip, hairy or covered with appressed rigid bristly hairs.

subsp. glabrescens:  Irregularly and commonly untidily branched. Stamens 9-18. Anthers 0.9-1.3 mm long. Outer calyx lobes 1.6-2.1 mm wide, margins scarcely curved down, scarcely ridged towards the tips, hairy with short hairs to hairless.

Critically Endangered Australia. Critically Endangered NSW (as Hibbertia sp. Bankstown (R.T. Miller & C.P. Gibson s.n. 18/10/2006)). 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.

NSW Threatened Species profile (as Hibbertia sp. Bankstown):  http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedSpeciesApp/profile.aspx?id=20140  (accessed 6 January, 2021)

subsp. puberula:  Irregularly and commonly untidily branched. Stamens 9-18. Anthers 1.3-2.1 mm long, Outer calyx lobes 2.5-3.8 mm wide, margins strongly curved down, distinctly raised ridge towards the tips, covered with appressed rigid bristly hairs, or hairy, rarely becoming hairless.

PlantNET description of species with photos and key to subspecies:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Hibbertia~puberula  (accessed 6 January, 2021)

Descriptions partly based on: Toelken, H.R. & Miller, R.T. (2012), Notes on Hibbertia (Dilleniaceae) 8. Seven new species, a new combination and four new subspecies from subgen. Hemistemma, mainly from the central coast of New South Wales. Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens 25: 81-84, Fig 2Y-EE