Cryptandra minutifolia is a flowering plant in the family Rhamnaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a spreading shrub with oblong to elliptic leaves and clusters of white or pink, tube-shaped flowers.
Cryptandra minutifolia is usually a spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of, its branchlets not spiny, its young stems densely hairy at first. The leaves are oblong to elliptic or narrowly elliptic, long and wide, on a petiole long with stipules long at the base. The upper surface of the leaves is minutely pimply, the lower surface mostly concealed, and there is a downcurved point on the tip. The flowers are white or pink with 8 to 14 broadly egg-shaped floral bracts at the base. The floral tube is long, joined at the base for and densely covered with star-shaped hairs. The sepals are long and densely hairy, the style long. Flowering mainly occurs from June to September, and the fruit is a schizocarp.[1]
Cryptandra minutifolia was first formally described in 1995 by Barbara Lynette Rye in the journal Nuytsia from specimens collected near Mount Madden, south-east of Lake King in 1968.[2] The specific epithet (minutifolia ) means "small-leaved", referring to the leaves being smaller than the flowers.
In the same journal, Rye described two subspecies of C. minutifolia, and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census:
This cryptandra usually grows on plains in mallee between Manmanning, Carrabin, Dumbleyung and the Ravensthorpe Range in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie Esperance Plains and Mallee bioregions of south-western Western Australia. Subspecies minutifolia has a more easterly distribution than subsp. brevistyla.
Both subspecies of C. minutifolia are listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.