Scaevola pulchella
| Scaevola pulchella | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification 
| |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Asterids |
| Order: | Asterales |
| Family: | Goodeniaceae |
| Genus: | Scaevola |
| Species: | S. pulchella
|
| Binomial name | |
| Scaevola pulchella | |
Scaevola pulchella is a species of flowering plant in the family Goodeniaceae. It is a small, spreading shrub with blue to mauve flowers borne on terminal spikes and is endemic to Western Australia.
Description
[edit]Scaevola pulchella is a decumbent to prostrate much-branched perennial herb or shrub to 90 cm (35 in) high. The stems are slender, more or less ridged and covered with silvery, long, spreading, soft hairs. The leaves are sessile, linear to elliptic to oblong-lance shaped, 15–40 mm (0.59–1.57 in) long, 4–10 mm (0.16–0.39 in) wide, margins usually smooth to finely toothed, covered with more or less thick simple hairs, and the larger leaves rounded with a point. The flowers are borne in terminal spikes up to 10 cm (3.9 in) long, bracteoles narrowly linear to elliptic, 4–8 mm (0.16–0.31 in) long with clearly visible silky hairs in the leaf axils. The blue-mauve corolla is 1.3–2.2 cm (0.51–0.87 in) long with simple hairs on the outer surface and more or less bearded on the inside and the flowers fan-shaped. Flowering occurs from June to October and the fruit is ellipsoidal to globe-shaped up to 4 mm (0.16 in) in diameter covered with simple hairs.[2][3]
Taxonomy naming
[edit]Scaevola pulchella was first formally described in 1990 by Roger Charles Carolin and the description was published in Telopea.[2][4] The specific epithet (pulchella) means "beautiful and small".[5]
Distribution and habitat
[edit]This scaevola grows on the spinifex plains near Carnarvon and east of Exmouth Gulf.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ "Scaevola pulchella". Australian Plant Census. Retrieved 23 April 2022.
- ^ a b c Carolin, Roger (1990). "Scaevola pulchella". Telopea. 3 (4): 496. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
- ^ Carolin, Roger (1990). Flora of Australia 35 (PDF). Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. p. 113. Retrieved 26 April 2022.
- ^ Carolin, Roger. "Scaevola pulchella". Australian Plant Name Index. Retrieved 26 April 2022.
- ^ Sharr, Francis Aubi; George, Alex (2019). Western Australian Plant Names and Their Meanings (3rd ed.). Kardinya, WA: Four Gables Press. p. 286. ISBN 9780958034180.