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Commersonia dasyphylla Andrews
Family Malvaceae
Commersonia dasyphylla Andrews APNI*

Synonyms: Rulingia pannosa R.Br. APNI*
Rulingia dasyphylla (Andrews) Sweet APNI*

Description: Shrub 1–4 m high, often flowering young so as to appear as a subshrub.

Leaves strongly discolorous, ovate to lanceolate, mostly 3–7 cm long, 5–30 mm wide, apex acute, base slightly cordate, margins coarsely toothed, sometimes lobed; upper surface with medium density to dense, sessile, white, stellate hairs, and with or without scattered, white, clavate, glandular trichomes but usually becoming glabrous or scabrous and rugose with impressed veins, lower surface with dense, sessile, white, stellate hairs, basal layer of hairs absent, glandular trichomes absent; petiole mostly 2–8 mm long. Juvenile leaves often 3–5-lobed, to 10 cm long, to 6 cm wide.

Inflorescence 3–21–flowered, longer than petioles. Calyx c. 3–5.5 mm long, Petals c. half as long as calyx segments, pinkish.

Capsule 5–7 mm diam., outer surface with medium-density, white, stellate hairs beneath dense bristles 2.1–4.7 mm long, throughout; shaft with stalked, clavate, glandular trichomes along complete length of bristles, with or without scattered, 1- or 2-armed hairs; apical hair with strongly reflexed arms.


Habit
Photo J. Miles

Flower
Photo J. Miles

Fruit
Photo J. Miles

Flowering: August to October. Fruits summer.

Distribution and occurrence: Widespread in Queensland, from the Atherton Tablelands, and New South Wales. It is, however, rare in Victoria, from near Murrindal.

Grows beneath open eucalyptus forest, melaleuca forest, or allocasuarina woodland, in granite or rhyolite rock outcrops on steep slopes, often near creek banks, in sandy soil.
NSW subdivisions: NC, CC, SC, NT, CT, ST, NWS, CWS
AVH map***

Without fruit it is difficult to distinguish Commersonia dasyphylla from C. rugosa and C. breviseta. The lower leaf surface of C. dasyphylla differs from both in having long, dense, stellate hairs, with arms all one length, and the epithelium just visible, rather than a tomentose lower surface with a dense layer of smaller hairs beneath the long hairs.

Text by B.J. Conn (2014); modified S.F. McCune (2019)
Taxon concept: Wilkins and Whitlock (2011) Australian Systematic Botany 24(5):277-279


APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data
***The AVH map option provides a detailed interactive Australia wide distribution map drawn from collections held by all major Australian herbaria participating in the Australian Virtual Herbarium project.
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