NEW SOUTH WALES FLORA ONLINE

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Synonyms: Zygophyllum aurantiacum (Lindl.) F.Muell. APNI*
Roepera aurantiaca (Lindl.) Beier & Thulin APNI*

Description: Low, spreading subshrub with slender stems, straggling, intricately branched, sometimes scrambling, usually 30–50 cm high, to 1 m diam.

Leaves sessile and simple, or petiolate and with 2 leaflets, petiole varying in length and width; leaflets continuous with the petiole, obtuse, truncate, emarginate or rarely 3-lobed at apex.

Sepals 4, 4–7.5 mm long. Petals 4, obovate, 5.5–11 mm long, usually twice as long as sepals, obtuse or faintly emarginate, yellow drying white. Stamens 8; filaments not winged. Fruiting pedicels 9.5–15 mm long, usually reflexed.

Fruit a schizocarp, depressed-circular in outline, pendent, 8–20 mm long, with 4 broad scarious transverse-veined wings, splitting into 4 cocci, each winged and usually 1-seeded.

Flowering: July–October

Distribution and occurrence: Grows in a variety of habitats and on different soils, at claypan margins, on stony calcareous soils and on red and grey sand; the far western plains regions of NSW. Also in SW Queensland, NW Victoria, South Australia, southern Northern Territory and Western Australia.
NSW subdivisions: NWP, SWP, NFWP, SFWP
Other Australian states: Qld Vic. W.A. S.A. N.T.

AVH map***

Barker (2013) recognises 4 subspecies. Only the typical subspecies occurs in NSW. It has Y-shaped leaves (i.e. with distinct petioles and leaflets), unlike the other subspecies, which have apparently simple leaves lacking either petiole or leaflets.