''Bursaria longisepala'' is a species of flowering plant in the family

Pittosporaceae Pittosporaceae is a family of flowering plants that consists of 200–240 species of trees, shrubs, and lianas in 9 genera. Habitats range from tropical to temperate climates of the Afrotropical, Indomalayan, Oceanian, and Australasian r ...

and is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

to New South Wales. It is a spiny, sprawling shrub with narrowly elliptic leaves clustered around spiny side-shoots, flowers with relatively large

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 Etymology The term ''sepalum'' ...

s, five spreading white petals and five

stamen The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...

s, and concave fruit.

Description

''Bursaria longisepala'' is a spiny, sprawling shrub that typically grows to a height of less than , some stands retaining juvenile characteristics. Young plants have clustered, thin, more or less sessile elliptic leaves long and wide with toothed edges. Adult plants have sessile, dark green, narrowly elliptic leaves long and wide clustered around spiny side-shoots. The flowers are arranged singly, in pairs or in small groups at the ends of branchlets, each flower on a pedicel long. The sepals are larger in this species than in others of the genus, green or cream-coloured, long, free from each other and spreading from the base. The five petals are white and spread from the base, long. Flowering mainly occurs in summer and the fruit is a concave capsule long and wide.

Taxonomy

''Bursaria longisepala'' was first formally described in 1926 by Karel Domin in the journal ''

Bibliotheca Botanica ''Bibliotheca Botanica'' ("Bibliography of botany", Amsterdam, 1736, Salomen Schouten; 2nd edn., 1751) is a botany book by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778). The book was written and published in Amsterdam when Linnaeus was twenty-e ...

'' from specimens he collected in the Blue Mountains in 1910.

Distribution and habitat

This bursaria mostly grows on south-facing cliffs and in disturbed areas in forest and woodland and is mainly found in the Blue Mountains and sometimes on the central coast of New South Wales.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15590855 longisepala Pittosporaceae Plants described in 1926 Flora of New South Wales Taxa named by Karel Domin