Hibbertia vestita
Hairy Guinea-flower
Hairy Guinea-flower
Wikipedia links: Angiosperms > Eudicots > Rosids > Dilleniales > Dilleniaceae > Hibbertia vestita
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Common name: Hairy Guinea-flower
Conservation status: . . .
Etymology:
The name Hibbertia honours George Hibbert, a patron of botany and slave trader
The specific epithet (vestita) means "covered"
Flowers:
The flowers are arranged on the ends of branchlets and are sessile or on a peduncle up to 4 mm long, with lance-shaped, leaf-like bracts 2.5–4.0 mm long at the base
The five sepals are joined at the base, the three outer sepal lobes 6–8 mm (0.24–0.31 in) long and 3.0–4.5 mm (0.12–0.18 in) wide, and the inner lobes slightly shorter
The five petals are broadly egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, yellow, up to 12.5 mm (0.49 in) long with two lobes on the end
There are 22 to 43 stamens and many staminodes arranged around three hairy carpels, each carpel with four to six ovules
Flowering occurs in most months
Fruit:
Leaves:
Foliage covered with simple hairs
The leaves sometimes becoming glabrous as they age
The leaves are linear to more or less oblong or lance-shaped, 3.5–8 mm (0.14–0.31 in) long and 0.6–2.0 mm (0.024–0.079 in) wide on a petiole 0.2–0.6 mm (0.0079–0.0236 in) long
Stem & branches:
A prostrate shrub that typically grows to a height of up to 30 cm
Roots:
Habit:
It is a small shrub with foliage covered with simple hairs, and usually has linear leaves, and yellow flowers with 22 to 43 stamens and many staminodes arranged around three hairy carpels.
Habitat:
Grows in heath in near-coastal area and in forest in areas further inland in south-east Queensland and north-eastern New South Wales
Variety thymifolia is restricted to exposed headlands in the same area
Distribution:
Endemic to eastern Australia
Additional notes:
Taxonomy
Hibbertia vestita was first formally described in 1863 by George Bentham from an unpublished description by Allan Cunningham, Bentham's description published in Flora Australiensis
Bentham also described variety thymifolia in the same edition of Flora Australiensis, and its name and that of the autonym are accepted by the Australian Plant Census:
Hibbertia vestita var. thymifolia Benth.[7] has shorter leaves than those of the autonym, and the end often curves downwards
Hibbertia vestita Benth
Sources of information: