''Conostylis candicans'', commonly known as grey cottonheads, is a flowering plant 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 ...

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 the south-west of Western Australia. It has grey foliage and bright yellow flower heads.

Description

''Conostylis candicans'' is a perennial herb to high that forms a

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and Shoot (botany), shoots from its Node (botany), nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from ...

. The leaves are in loose clusters or tufted, flat, grey, narrow, long and wide and the surface densely covered with yellowish or light, grey matted hairs. The scape is about long, thin, flower heads bright yellow,

perianth The perianth (perigonium, perigon or perigone in monocots) is the non-reproductive part of the flower. It is a structure that forms an envelope surrounding the sexual organs, consisting of the calyx (sepals) and the corolla (petals) or tepal ...

long, globular shaped in bud, loosening with age,

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves in size, color, shape or texture. They also lo ...

s long, fleshy, grey, covered in matted hairs. Flowering occurs from August to November.

Taxonomy and naming

''Conostylis candicans'' was first formally described in 1839 by

Stephan Friedrich Ladislaus Endlicher Stephan Friedrich Ladislaus Endlicher, also known as Endlicher István László (24 June 1804 – 28 March 1849), was an Austrian botanist, numismatist and Sinologist. He was a director of the Botanical Garden of Vienna. Biography Endlicher ...

and the description was published in ''Novarum Stirpium Decades''. The

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

(''candicans'') means becoming white or whitish.

Distribution and habitat

Grey cottonheads grows in sandy locations in woodland and coastal heath from

Shark Bay Shark Bay () is a World Heritage Site in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The area is located approximately north of Perth, on the westernmost point of the Australian continent. UNESCO's listing of Shark Bay as a World Heritage S ...

to the

Scott River The Scott River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 9, 2011 river in Siskiyou County, California, United States. It is a tributary of the Klamath River, one of the ...

in Western Australia.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15333894 candicans Commelinales of Australia Angiosperms of Western Australia Endemic flora of Western Australia Plants described in 1839