Pimelea telura

Detailed description

Shrubs, to 1 × 1 m with thick, rather stiff stems, decumbent to suberect or erect. Branches stout, numerous, sympodial. Young branchlets densely covered with appressed, short, white, villous hair, older stems less hairy, pale brown maturing grey. Node buttresses short (0.2 mm), lunate, hidden by hair on young branchlets, prominent after leaf fall. Internode length 1.5–3 mm. Leaves decussate, crowded on young branchlets, on short, brown petioles (0.5–0.8 mm), ascendant, becoming patent or deflexed. Lamina glabrous, glaucous to yellow-green glaucescent, 8–14 × 3–6 mm, leathery, flat to slightly adaxially concave, to cymbiform, ovate to narrow ovate or broad elliptic to narrow elliptic, acute to slightly acuminate (but blunt-pointed), base cuneate. Stomata only on adaxial side. Inflorescences crowded, compact, 3–8-flowered. Involucral bracts 4, ovate to elliptic 8–12 × 4–5 mm. Receptacle very hairy. Plants bisexual. Flowers creamy white, on very short pedicels (0.3 mm). Outside of tube and calyx lobes densely covered with hair; inside hairless or sometimes with sparse hair; tube to 5 mm long, ovary portion 4 mm long, with vertical “stripes” of hair when dry, calyx lobes 3 × 2 mm. Anthers yellow. Ovary summit with dense short hair, extending two-thirds of the way to the base. Fruits ovoid, fleshy, creamy white (sometimes basally flushed pink), 6 × 3 mm. The hypanthium breaks off, irregularly, near the base as the fruits ripen. Seed broad-pyriform, with very thin crest, 3.5 × 2.0 mm.