''Cryptandra debilis'' is a species of flowering plant in the family

Rhamnaceae The Rhamnaceae are a large family of flowering plants, mostly trees, shrubs, and some vines, commonly called the buckthorn family. Rhamnaceae is included in the order Rosales. The family contains about 55 genera and 950 species. The Rhamnaceae h ...

and is endemic to north Queensland. It is a small shrub with clustered, linear leaves and densely-hairy, white, tube-shaped flowers.

Description

''Cryptandra debilis'' is a shrub that typically grows to a height of up to , its branchlets hairy at first. Its leaves are arranged in clusters of up to 8, linear and clustered, mostly long and wide on a petiole long, with stipules long at the base. The upper surface of the leaves is glabrous and the edges are rolled under, obscuring the lower surface. The flowers are white and borne singly in leaf axils in groups of up to four with 3 to 6

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s at the base. The floral tube is long, the sepal lobes long and densely hairy. The petals are long, forming a hood over the

stamen The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filame ...

s and protruding beyond the sepal tube. Flowering mostly occurs from April to July, and the fruit is about long.

Taxonomy and naming

''Cryptandra debilis'' was first formally described in 2004 by

Anthony Bean Anthony Russell Bean (born 1957) is an Australian botanist who works at the Queensland Herbarium and Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha. Since 1982, he has led the Eucalyptus Study Group of the Society for Growing Australian Plants. Care ...

in the journal '' Austrobaileya'' from specimens collected near Watsonville in 1997. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

(''debilis'') means "weak" or "feeble", referring to the stature of the plant.

Distribution and habitat

This cryptandra grows in shrubland on sandstone and granite ridges on parts of the

Atherton Tableland The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. The principal river flowing across the plateau is the Barron River. It was dammed to form an irrigation reservoir named Lake Tina ...

and nearby

Mount Mulligan Mount Mulligan is a former mining town and now a rural locality in the Shire of Mareeba, Queensland, Australia. In the Mount Mulligan had a population of 4 people. It is the site of the Mount Mulligan mine disaster, Queensland's worst mining ...

in far north Queensland.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15537470 debilis Rosales of Australia Flora of Queensland Plants described in 2004 Taxa named by Anthony Bean