Seringia hillii

Location & distribution maps

Plant  information

Common name:         Mountain Fire-Bush

Conservation status: Least concern

• Is listed as of "least concern" in Queensland by the Queensland Government Department of Environment and Science

Etymology:   

• The specific epithet (hillii) honours Walter Hill

Flowers

• The flowers are arranged in a cyme with 2 to 9 flowers up to 20 mm wide, on a peduncle 5–15 mm long, each flower on a pedicel 5–15 mm long

• The flowers are mauve, sometimes white or pink, with deeply divided sepals

• There are no petals, the stamens alternate with the staminodes, and the filaments are yellow and twice as long as the anthers

• Flowering occurs in most months with a peak in spring and summer

Fruit:                            

• A spherical capsule 12–15 mm in diameter

Leaves:         

• The leaves are egg-shaped to linear or lance-shaped, 40–90 mm long and usually 4–8 mm wide 

• Petiole is up to 10 mm long with narrow, leaf-like stipules 2–8 mm long at the base

Stem & branches: 

• New growth covered with rust-coloured hairs

Roots:         

Habit:        

• A single-stemmed shrub that typically grows to a height of 1–3 m and 1.0–1.5 m wide

Habitat:   

• Around cliffs and in rocky country 

Distribution:                  

• Endemic to eastern Australia

• Near Stanthorpe, the Glasshouse Mountains and Mount Barney in south-east Queensland and on the coast and ranges north from Port Stephens in NSW

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy

  • This species was first formally described in 1863 by George Bentham who gave it the name Keraudrenia hillii in Flora Australiensis from an unpublished description by Ferdinand von Mueller

  • In 1882, Ferdinand von Mueller transferred the species to Seringia as S. hillii in his Systematic Census of Australian Plants

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seringia_hillii (2023)

• https://bie.ala.org.au/species/https://id.biodiversity.org.au/taxon/apni/51288600 (May 2024)