Creeping Monkey-flower

Scientific Name:

Mimulus repens

Creeping Monkey-flower - plant

Other Common Name:

Maori Musk

Status:

Native to most of Australia. Also in New Zealand.

Plant Description:

Small annual or perennial, non-hairy herb usually growing along the ground from rooting nodes and forming mats. The leaves are generally crowded and small 2-6 mm long, ovate with an acute or obtuse apex and a rounded base on very short stalks. Flowers arise singly from the leaf axils on short stalks. Flowers are blue, purple or pink with a white or yellow tube 5-10 mm long and a raised yellow palate on the lower lip of the corolla. Flowers mainly in spring and autumn. Fruit is a 5 mm long capsule.

Habitat:

Generally occurs on clay soils on flats and drying lakes, sometimes in brackish situations.

Region	Salinity Class	Waterlogging Class
Mallee, Loddon Murray, Central and Northern, Wimmera, Western, Gippsland	S0, S1, S2	W2, W3

Comments:

Similar to the hairy-stemmed Small Monkey-flower (Mimulus prostratus) from northern Victoria.
Creeping monkey-flower has been suspected of causing sheep deaths when young plants were eaten after rain.

Creeping Monkey-flower - plant
Photo: A J Brown

Creeping Monkey-flower - trailing stems and leaves
Photo: A J Brown

Creeping Monkey-flower - leaves and flowers
Photo: A J Brown

Creeping Monkey-flower - flower
Photo: A J Brown

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