Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Leionema phylicifolium

Flower, flower buds, and leaves. Photographer Jackie Miles

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, SE Forests National Park

Flowering branches. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Shrub. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Common name

Mountain phebalium

Family

Rutaceae

Where found

Dry forest, shrubland, heath, and near streams. Ranges and tablelands south from Big Badja Mountain NE of Cooma. Kosciuszko National Park. Occasionally elsewhere.

Notes

Shrub to about 1.6 m high. Stalks of individual flowers, and calyces, more or less fleshy. Branchlets slightly angular when young, finely stellate hairy (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see) in longitudinal bands between the bases of the leaf stalks, which continue down the stems.  Leaves aromatic when rubbed, alternating up the stems, 0.5–3 cm long, 1.5–3 mm wide, more or less cylindrical, tips pointed to blunt, margins curved to rolled down, upper surface smooth and hairless, lower surface usually white stellate-hairy, rarely hairless. Flowers yellow, with 5 petals each 3.5–5 mm long, hairless, gland-dotted. Flowers 1-3 together, forming more or less cylindrical leafy clusters. Flowering: spring-summer.

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