''Conostylis argentea'' is a rhizomatous, tufted perennial plant species in the family

Haemodoraceae Haemodoraceae is a family of perennial herbaceous angiosperms (flowering plants) containing 15 genera and 102 known species, sometimes known as the "bloodroots", found throughout the Southern Hemisphere, from Australia and New Guinea to South A ...

, endemic to the south-west of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. In July and August it produces white to cream flowers in the species' native range.

Description

According to FloraBase, the terete leaves are 8 to 13 cm long and about 1 mm wide. The leaves have neither bristles nor hairs on the leaf margin nor the surface of the leaf, but according to

Flora of Australia The flora of Australia comprises a vast assemblage of plant species estimated to over 21,000 vascular and 14,000 non-vascular plants, 250,000 species of fungi and over 3,000 lichens. The flora has strong affinities with the flora of Gondwana, ...

online, the leaves are flat and villous (covered in long soft hairs). There is no scape. The inflorescence is subtended by a bract 10–12 mm long, with one flower. The floral bracts are 10–12 mm long and have sessile pedicels. The radially symmetric flowers are 35–65 mm long, with hairy perianths, are white to cream, with six roughly equal tepals. There are six stamens, all at one level, having filaments which are 7–8 mm long. The anthers have no appendages and are 5.5-5.7 mm long. The style is 25–38 mm long. The plant flowers in July/August.

Distribution

It is found in the Coolgardie,

Avon Wheatbelt The Avon Wheatbelt is a bioregion in Western Australia. It has an area of . It is considered part of the larger Southwest Australia savanna ecoregion. Geography The Avon Wheatbelt bioregion is mostly a gently undulating landscape with low rel ...

, Mallee and

Esperance plains Esperance Plains, also known as Eyre Botanical District, is a biogeography, biogeographic region in southern Western Australia on the South_coast_of_Western_Australia , south coast between the Avon Wheatbelt and Hampton bioregions, and bordere ...

IBRA bioregion(s), in the South-west Botanical Province.

Taxonomy

It was first described in 1961 by

John Green John Michael Green (born August 24, 1977) is an American author and YouTuber. His books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide, including ''The Fault in Our Stars'' (2012), which is one of the List of best-selling books#Bet ...

as a subspecies, ''Conostylis androstemma'' subsp. ''argentea''.Green, J.W. (1961), The Genus Conostylis R.Br. II. Taxonomy. ''Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales'' 85(3): 367. In 1987,

Stephen Hopper Stephen Donald Hopper (born 18 June 1951) is a Western Australian botanist. He graduated in Biology, specialising in conservation biology and vascular plants. Hopper has written eight books, and has over 200 publications to his name. He was Direc ...

raised it to species status as ''Conostylis argentea''.

References

External links

''Conostylis'' Esperance Wildflowers
(Photographs & descriptions of six ''Conostylis'' species, including ''C. argentea'') Commelinales of Australia Angiosperms of Western Australia Plants described in 1961 Taxa named by Stephen Hopper argentea {{WesternAustralia-plant-stub