Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Lomatia fraseri
Silky Lomatia, Tree Lomatia, Forest Lomatia
Proteaceae
Forest. Ranges, mainly south of the Kings Highway.
Shrub or tree to about 10 m high. Bark rough, with longitudinal fissures and horizontal lenticels, grey to dark brown. Buds and young stems rusty-hairy with appressed T-shaped hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), older stems eventually becoming hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 6–13 cm long, 10–35 mm wide, margins deeply or shallowly toothed, occasionally entire, or sometimes deeply dissected; upper surface dull green and hairless, lower surface pale yellow-green and dull or silky with appressed fine hairs, sometimes rusty hairy, tips blunt to pointed. Flowers white to cream, densely hairy, tubular, the tube slit by the style in bud, with 4 'petals' 7–9 mm long, splitting to the base when the flower is fully open. Flowers paired, in clusters 8–12 cm long. Flowers summer. Seeds with one wing.
Intergrades with Lomatia myricoides or with Lomatia ilicifolia when they grow together.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Lomatia~fraseri (accessed 24 January, 2021)
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