Round-Leaf Wilsonia

Status:

Native to Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria.

Plant Description:

Small perennial herb with prostrate or slightly ascending much-branched mat-forming stems. Leaves alternate, flat and rather thick, round or ovate, 1.5-4 mm long, shortly stalked and crowded together, entire, at first covered with loose spreading hairs which later fall with maturity. Flowers white or yellow with 5 spreading lanceolate lobes which are slightly longer than the tubular calyx, silky-hairy, about 5 mm long. Fruit is an ovoid one-celled capsule, enclosed by the longer, persistent calyx, containing one (or sometimes two) glossy black to dull brown seeds. Flowering in spring-early summer.

Habitat:

Mainly occurs on grey clay soils in low lying country but also on lake margins, saline marshes and brackish swamps.

Comment:

In highly saline situations, plants are generally very small and stunted, though still relatively healthy.