''Cryptandra exilis'', commonly known as slender pearlflower, 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 ...

and is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

to Tasmania. It is a small, straggly, low-growing shrub with linear leaves and tube-shaped white or cream-coloured flowers arranged in small groups on the ends of branches.

Description

''Cryptandra exilis'' is a shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has slender, low-lying or straggly stems. Its leaves are arranged in small bundles on short side-branches and are linear with the edges rolled under and long. The flowers are usually arranged in groups of 2 to 6 on the ends of the main branches with dark brown bracts at the base, half as long as the

sepal A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coined ...

tube. The sepals are white or cream-coloured and joined at the base, forming a densely hairy tube more than long with lobes about long. The petals form 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 filam ...

s and the

style Style is a manner of doing or presenting things and may refer to: * Architectural style, the features that make a building or structure historically identifiable * Design, the process of creating something * Fashion, a prevailing mode of clothing ...

is about long. Flowering occurs from September to May, and the fruit is a capsule about long.

Taxonomy

''Cryptandra exilis'' was first formally described in 1991 by

Dennis Ivor Morris Dennis Ivor Morris (16 May 1924–27 July 2005) was a British-born Australian botanist. Early life and career Dennis Ivor Morris, born on 16 May 1924, in Tunbridge Wells, England, had his formative education at the Worshipful Company of Skinn ...

in ''Aspects of Tasmanian Botany - a tribute to Winifred Curtis'' from specimens collected b
Tony Moscal
in 1980. 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 ...

(''exilis'') means "small" or "weak".

Distribution and habitat

Slender pearlflower grows in heathy or shrubby forest from

Cape Barren Island Cape Barren Island, officially truwana / Cape Barren Island, is a island in the Bass Strait, off the north east coast of Tasmania, Australia. It is the second largest island of the Furneaux Group; Flinders Island lies to the north, with the ...

to the

Tasman Peninsula The Tasman Peninsula, officially Turrakana / Tasman Peninsula, is a peninsula located in south-east Tasmania, Australia, approximately by the Arthur Highway, south-east of Hobart. The Tasman Peninsula lies south and west of Forestier Penin ...

on the east coast of Tasmania.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15537773 exilis Rosales of Australia Flora of Tasmania Plants described in 1991 Taxa named by Dennis Ivor Morris