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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Euphorbiaceae
Bertya rotundifolia

Citation: F. Muell., Fragm. Phyt. Aust. 4:34 (1863).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Kangaroo Island bertya.

Description:
Low shrubs, stems ascending, densely rusty-stellate-tomentose, grey to light-brown, becoming at length blackish and glabrescent; leaves on short and stout pedicels 1-2 mm long, ovate or orbicular, 5-10 mm long, with recurved margins, becoming glabrous above, concave and white-stellate-tomentose below.

Flowers dispersed, solitary, sessile, with inconspicuous bracts; male perianth lobes 5, ovate, 1.5-3 mm long, obtuse, glabrous, brown, leathery; filament column to 4 mm long, red, anthers yellow; female perianth-segments 5, slightly smaller and narrower than in the males, enlarged later in fruit, glabrous; styles free, 1-1.5 mm long, 2- or 3-fid, red.

capsule ovoid-oblong, c. 6 x 3.5 mm, usually twice as long as the perianth-segments, stellate-tomentose to glabrescent, green; seed oblong-ovoid, c. 5 x 3 mm, brown, mottled red-black to dark-brown; caruncle pyramidal, c. 1.7 mm long and wide, yellow.

image of FSA2_Bertya_rot.jpg Bertya rotundifolia twig, female and male flower.
Image source: fig 397b in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Distribution:  S.Aust.: KI.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: Aug. — Oct.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available


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