Stemodia lythrifolia F.Muell. ex Benth.

Bentham, G. (1868) Flora Australiensis 4: 486. Type: N. Australia. Common on the rocky islands of the N.W. coast, A. Cunningham, Bynoe; Upper Victoria river, F. Mueller; islands of the Gulf of Carpentaria, R. Brown.

Aromatic subshrub with erect branches up to 80 cm tall; whole plant clothed in dense pale hairs and sessile yellow glandular hairs.

Leaves strongly aromatic when crushed. Leaf blades 30-60 x 6-10 mm, auriculate with petioles very short or nil. Leaf blade densely clothed in pale hairs.

Flowers 12-40 in several dense spikes, 4-angled in fruit; arranged singly in the axils of the bracts; bracts ovate, acute. Sepals more or less equal, 2.5-6 mm long. Corolla white to mauve with deep mauve throut and sometimes striations that extend onto the lobes, 4-5 mm long with long hairs in the throat. Stamens markedly unequal with paired anthers connate.

Capsule encoled in the persistent sepals, ovoid, 3-5 x 1.5-2.7 mm, nearly as long as the sepals, long-acuminate. Seeds 50+, dark brown, ellipsoid-oblong, 0.35-0.5 x 0.15-0.25 mm, with a reticulate surface.

Features not available.

Occurs in WA, NT, CYP and NEQ. Altitudinal range from 54-400 m. Grows in rainforest margins, in deciduous vine thicket, Eucalypt woodland, Melaleuca woodland, open shrubland, wooded grassland and Triodia grassland.

In the Kimberley, leaves of this plant are chewed if tobacco is not available (Clarke ).