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Genus Tetratheca Family Elaeocarpaceae
Common Name: Pink-eyes, Black-eyed Susan

Description: Compact or diffuse shrubs; stems terete, winged or ridged, usually pubescent.

Leaves glabrous or glandular-pubescent, sometimes reduced and scale-like.

Peduncles filiform, often dark-coloured; bracts minute. Sepals 4 [or 5], usually dark-coloured, usually not persistent in fruit. Petals 4 [or 5], involute around paired stamens in bud, usually deep lilac-pink, occasionally paler pink or white, usually not persistent in fruit. Stamens usually 8, hypogynous; anthers 4-locular, basifixed. Ovary compressed; style filiform.

Capsule opening longitudinally; seeds 2–4 mm long, brown and smooth, with fine hairs and an appendage.


Illustration
L. Elkan

Distribution and occurrence: World: 20 species, endemic Australia. Australia: widespread but not in tropical regions; all States except N.T.

Text by C. Gardner & L. Murray
Taxon concept:

 Key to the species 
1Stems wingedTetratheca juncea
Stems not winged2
2Plants with dimorphic foliage; some branches glabrous with linear leaves, some with dense, stout, antrorse hairs and broad-elliptic to more or less circular leavesTetratheca shiressii
Plants with all leaves similar
                       Back to 1
3
3Stems almost completely leaflessTetratheca subaphylla
Stems leafy, at least on the lower part
                       Back to 2
4
4Leaves linear or appearing linear with recurved or revolute margins5
Leaves not linear
                       Back to 3
11
5Leaves in whorls of 3–76
Leaves alternate, occasionally some opposite
                       Back to 4
10
6Peduncles distinctly glandular-hairyTetratheca glandulosa
Peduncles not obviously glandular-hairy
                       Back to 5
7
7Stems with hairs of 2 types, some minutely spreading or retrorse (and present at least at the nodes) and the others 0.5–1.5 mm long8
Stem hairs not as above, and tending to be antrorse
                       Back to 6
9
8Most stem hairs short and conspicuously retrorseTetratheca rubioides
Stem hairs usually both short and long, but if most short, then these not conspicuously retrorse
                       Back to 7
Tetratheca neglecta
9Stems bristly with dense pale brown hairs, regularly antrorse; gland-tipped hairs on calyxTetratheca ericifolia
Stems with hairs sparse to numerous, white or grey, tending to be antrorse but often twisted and irregularly directed, or stems glabrous and tuberculate
                       Back to 7
Tetratheca rupicola
10Stem terete and ridged with numerous antrorse bristles; fruit depressed-globoseTetratheca decora
Stem terete or ridged and appearing 4-angled and tuberculate with tubercles often produced into minute white hairs, some stout brown bristles also present; fruit often beaked, obovate to obcuneate or cordate, turgid
                       Back to 5
Tetratheca pilosa
11Sepals present around the mature fruit or tardily caducous, not falling soon after anthesis and with no joint at their junction with the receptacle; stems with usually with gland-tipped hairsTetratheca labillardierei
Sepals absent from the mature fruit, falling soon after anthesis at a distinct junction with the receptacle; stems hairs not gland-tipped
                       Back to 4
12
12Peduncles and sepals with glandular hairs onlyTetratheca ciliata
Peduncles and sepals with non-glandular hairs
                       Back to 11
13
13Sepals usually c. 1 mm long; stem hairs of 2 types, some short and others longTetratheca pilosa
Sepals more than 1.5 mm long; stem hairs of 1 type only
                       Back to 12
14
14Leaves in whorls15
Leaves alternate, rarely opposite
                       Back to 13
Tetratheca decora
15Most hairs on stems less than 0.5 mm long and curved or curledTetratheca bauerifolia
Most hairs on stems 0.5–1.5 mm long, tending to be antrorse but many twisted or irregular
                       Back to 14
Tetratheca thymifolia

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