Cryptandra hispidula, commonly known as rough cryptandra,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Rhamnaceae and is endemic to South Australia. It is a small shrub with clustered, cylindrical leaves, and tube-shaped white flowers surrounded by leafy bracts.
Cryptandra hispidula is a shrub that typically grows to a height of, its branchlets covered with star-shaped hairs and rough. The leaves are clustered and more or less needle-shaped, long and about wide with the edges rolled under, concealing the lower surface. The flowers are sessile, arranged in clusters of up to 8 at the ends of branches and are white, tube-shaped, long and surrounded by 4 or 5 hairy brown bracts about half as long as the floral tube. The sepals are long and silky-hairy, the style nearly as long as the floral tube. Flowering occurs in most months.[2]
Cryptandra hispidula was first formally described in 1858 by Siegfried Reissek and Ferdinand von Mueller in the journal Linnaea from specimens collected by Charles Stuart.[3] [4] The specific epithet (hispidula) means "somewhat rough".[5]
Rough cryptandra mainly grows in swampy country on Kangaroo Island and the southern Mount Lofty Ranges of South Australia.