''Scaevola anchusifolia'' commonly known as silky scaevola, is a species of flowering plant in the family

Goodeniaceae Goodeniaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Asterales. It contains about 404 species in twelve genera. The family is distributed mostly in Australia, except for the genus '' Scaevola'', which is pantropical. Its species are found ac ...

. It is a small, upright or decumbent shrub with fan-shaped blue to bluish white flowers 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 Western Australia.

Description

''Scaevola anchusifolia'' is a decumbent or upright shrub to high and stems with rough, longish hairs. The leaves are oblong-lance shaped, taper toward the base, margins smooth or toothed, long and up to wide. The flowers are borne on terminal spikes up to long. The

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 are narrowly elliptic to linear shaped, long and gradually taper to a point. The corolla is long, light blue to bluish white, hairy on the outside, bearded inside and the

wings A wing is a type of fin that produces both lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-drag ratio, which compares the bene ...

about wide. Flowering occurs from July to November and the fruit is a rounded, flattened shape, wrinkled, smooth and with two sterile cavities.

Taxonomy

''Scaevola anchusifolia'' was first formally described in 1837 by

George Bentham George Bentham (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884) was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studie ...

and the description was published in ''Enumeratio plantarum quas in Novae Hollandiae ora austro-occidentali ad fluvium Cygnorum et in Sinu Regis Georgii collegit Carolus liber baro de Hügel''.

Distribution and habitat

Silky scaevola grows from the Murchison River to Yalgorup National Park on coastal plains, limestone ridges and sand dunes.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17480625 anchusifolia Flora of Western Australia Plants described in 1837 Taxa named by George Bentham