''Spyridium burragorang'', is a flowering shrub in the family

Rhamnaceae The Rhamnaceae are a large Family (biology), 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 specie ...

. It has dense clusters of whitish flowers at the end of branches, alternate leaves 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.

Description

''Spyridium burragorang'' is a spreading, multi-stemmed shrub that typically grows to a height of . The new growth stems are thickly covered with short, grey to yellowish star-shaped hairs intermixed with long, curved or zig-zag simple hairs. The leaves are arranged alternately, upper surface dark green, lower surface densely covered in short, soft, greyish star-shaped hairs, occasionally sparingly with more or less flattened hairs along the veins, midrib and leaf edges. The leaf base is wedge-shaped to rounded, apex blunt to rounded, minutely pointed or straight to curved, and the

petiole Petiole may refer to: *Petiole (botany), the stalk of a leaf, attaching the blade to the stem *Petiole (insect anatomy) In entomology, petiole is the technical term for the narrow waist of some hymenopteran insects, especially ants, bees, and ...

long. The

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

is a terminal cluster or a loose grouping of 30-50 flowers with 2 to 4 oval to elliptic, whitish floral leaves. The white or cream flowers have five petals long,

hypanthium In angiosperms, a hypanthium or floral cup is a structure where basal portions of the Sepal, calyx, the petal, corolla, and the stamens form a cup-shaped tube. It is sometimes called a floral tube, a term that is also used for corolla tube and cal ...

tube long, in diameter, and covered with occasional greyish, soft hairs or densely covered in long, soft, straight hairs and the brown

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 about long. Flowering occurs in June and July, and the fruit is a dry, grey or black rounded capsule about long.

Taxonomy and naming

''Spyridium burragorang'' was first formally described in 2004 by

Kevin Thiele Kevin R. Thiele is currently an adjunct associate professor at the University of Western Australia and the director of Taxonomy Australia. He was the curator of the Western Australian Herbarium from 2006 to 2015. His research interests include ...

and the description was published in '' Telopea''. 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 ...

(''burragorang'') refers to the area where it was located near

Lake Burragorang Lake Burragorang is a man-made reservoir in the lower Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia, serving as a major water supply for greater metropolitan Sydney. The dam impounding the lake, the Warragamba Dam, is located approximately sout ...

Distribution and habitat

This spyridium is a rare species growing on dry ridges in bushland on shallow soil near Lake Burragorang,

Wollondilly Wollondilly Shire is a periurban local government area that is located on the far southwest fringe of the Greater Sydney area in New South Wales, Australia. The local government area is part of the Macarthur and Blue Mountains regions. The Wol ...

and near Cessnock.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17241268 burragorang Rosales of Australia Flora of New South Wales Taxa named by Kevin Thiele