Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Lasiopetalum macrophyllum

Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, Ben Boyd National Park, north of Eden

Shrub. Photographer Russell Best, Mallacoota, Vic

Common name

Shrubby velvet-bush 

Family

Malvaceae

Where found

Forest, woodland, heath, and amongst rocks near streams. Coast, ranges, and the eastern edge of the tablelands. Doubtfully naturalised in the ACT.

Notes

Shrub to 3 m tall. Stems covered with rusty stellate hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see). Leaves alternating up the stems, 2.5–13 cm long, 10-70 mm wide, bases often cordate, tips pointed; upper surface scurfy to hairless, lower surface rusty-tomentose, margins flat or slightly curved down. Flowers hairless inside and purple to pink or cream to white; rusty-stellate hairy (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see) on the outside, with 5 'petals' 6-8 mm long, joined at the base. Flowers in short dense clusters of about 6–12 flowers. Flowers Spring.

Family was Sterculiaceae.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Lasiopetalum~macrophyllum  (accessed 22 January, 2021)