Family: Phyllanthaceae
Phyllanthus maderaspatensis
Citation:
L., Sp. Pl. 982 (1753) var. angustifolius Benth., Fl. Aust. 6:103 (1873).
Synonymy: Not Applicable Common name: None
Description:
Diffuse or erect subshrub to 50 cm tall, probably annual, glabrous, branching from a central stem or sometimes many stems from the base but then each stem with many slender straight angular branches; leaves distichous, on ultimate branches, linear-obovate, 8-25 x 1.5-4 mm, obtuse or mucronulate, cuneate and tapering into a short but distinct petiole, flat or slightly concave, with a prominent midrib and less prominent veins, greenish above sometimes reddish or glaucous below; leaves on main branches larger, to 40 mm long and 6-8 mm wide; stipules lanceolate, to 0.5 mm long, green or red and distinctly bordered with white scarious margins; monoecious.
Flowers usually 1 female with 2 or 3 males in each axil; male flowers on peduncles c. 0.5 mm long, perianth-segments obovate, c. 0.5 mm long, green or reddish outside with-distinct white margins; anthers distinct, erect on the top of the short column, the cells parallel; glands minute; female flowers on filiform peduncles to 1 mm long, to 2 mm long in fruit; perianth-segments obovate, to 2 mm long, green or reddish outside with narrow white scarious margins; ovary glabrous, styles distinct, spreading, dilated and very shortly 2-lobed at the end; disc flat, broadly lobed.
Capsule depressed-globular, c. 3 mm diam., slightly 3-lobed, green to green-reddish or brown, pendent; seed c. 1.25 mm long, light to dark-brown, elegantly marked on the back with minute tubercles arranged longitudinally in 10-12 rows.
Distribution:
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Occurs on brown soils or floodplains.
W.Aust.; N.T.; Qld; N.S.W.
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Conservation status:
native
Flowering time: in spring.
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SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia
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Biology:
No text
Author:
Not yet available
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