Androcalva leichhardtii is a species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae and is endemic to central Queensland. It is a small shrub with hairy new growth, wrinkled, egg-shaped to lance-shaped leaves with irregular serrations on the edges, and small groups of yellow flowers.
Androcalva leichhardtii is a small, open shrub that forms suckers and typically grows to high and wide, its new growth covered with fine, white, star-shaped hairs. The leaves are egg-shaped to lance-shaped, long and wide on a petiole long with narrowly egg-shaped stipules long at the base. The edges of the leaves have irregular serrations, the leaf veins give the leaves a wrinkled appearance, and both surfaces are densely covered with star-shaped hairs. The flowers are arranged in groups of 2 to 5 on a peduncle long, each flower on a pedicel long, with linear bracts long at the base. The flowers are yellow and in diameter with 5 petal-like sepals, the lobes long. The petals are bright yellow, long, the ligules with 3 lobes, the middle lobe egg-shaped and the side-lobes enveloping the stamens. Flowering occurs in March, June and November.[1]
This species was first formally described in 1863 by George Bentham who gave it the name Commersonia leichhardtii in Flora Australiensis from specimens collected near the "Head of Boyd river" by Ludwig Leichhardt.[2] [3] In 2011, Carolyn Wilkins and Barbara Whitlock transferred the species to Androcalva as A. leichhardtii in Australian Systematic Botany.[4]
Androcalva leichhardtii grows as an undershrub under eucalypts on stony hills and ridges from near Taroom to near Chinchilla in central Queensland.