Verticordia verticordina

Verticordia verticordina

Priority Three — Poorly Known Taxa (DEC)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Rosids
Order: Myrtales
Family: Myrtaceae
Genus: Verticordia
Species: V. verticordina
Binomial name
Verticordia verticordina
(F.Muell.) A.S.George

Verticordia verticordina is a species of flowering plant in the Myrtaceae family. It is a low growing shrub, with greenish-white flowers, that occurs near the southern coast of Western Australia.

The habit of this small shrub with many basal stems is spreading to prostrate. The floral leaves are between 5 and 10 millimetres long and similar to those of the stem; these are semicircular in cross section, giving a fleshy appearance. The flowers are pale and greenish-cream, browning as they age on the plant. The cream coloured sepals, 3.5 mm long and elliptic, have almost undivided, ragged and papery, slightly hairy, or entire margins. The petals have several cilia structures at their margins, are cream, 3 mm long, and have an oval shape that tapers to a point. The hypanthium is hairy, ovules are two and the long style, 15 mm and tapering, is slightly bearded below the apex. It does not possess a lignotuber.

The fleshy appearance of leaves and flowers, and almost entire margin of the sepal, distinguish this plant from other species of Verticordia. Variously placed within the Myrtaceae family, the species shares characteristics with two closely related genera. Verticordia verticordina was originally named Chamelaucium verticordinum in the description by Ferdinand von Mueller (1864),[1] then transferred to Darwinia, as D. verticordina, by George Bentham the following year.[2]

The Latin term verticordina translates as resembling Verticordia. When Alex George transferred the species into that genus in 1991, with some reservations, its specific epithet was conserved.[3] The plant shares characteristics with two other species in the same region, V. oxylepis and V. longistylis, these are contained in Verticordia sect. Infuscata, although it also resembles small species of Darwinia.

George's infrageneric placement is within Verticordia subg. Verticordia as the sole member of section Verticordia sect. Elachoschista, which has the unusual or unique characteristics; fleshiness, unlobed sepals, prominent staminodes, and wet habitat. The arrangement may be summarised as:

Genus Verticordia
Subgenus Verticordia
Section Verticordia
Section Corymbiformis
Section Micrantha
Section Infuscata
Section Elachoschista
V. verticordina
Section Pencillaris
Section Pilocosta
Section Catocalypta
Section Platandra
Section Recondita
Section Intricata

The specimens used for the description of this species were collected by George Maxwell at Cape Le Grand National Park. Several populations are recorded in the Esperance Plains region, between Esperance and Israelite Bay, occurring on or near coastal granite outcrops in wet and sandy clay. It is sometimes found growing in heath with Verticordia plumosa var. grandiflora

The state's Department of Environment and Conservation has placed this species on the Declared Rare and Priority Flora List as P3, small and poorly surveyed populations that may be declared rare.

References

  1. ↑ Mueller, F.J.H. von (1864), Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae 4(27): 57 "In rupibus ad promontorium Cape Le Grand. Maxw."
  2. ↑ Bentham, G. (1865) Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany 9: 181 [comb. nov.]
  3. ↑ George, A.S. (1991) New taxa, combinations and typifications in Verticordia (Myrtaceae: Chamelaucieae). Nuytsia 7(3): 377 [comb. nov.]
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