Philotheca obovatifolia, commonly known as mountain wax-flower, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rutaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is a small shrub with broadly egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end toward the base and densely crowded near the ends of the glandular-warty branchlets, and cream-coloured flowers tinged with pink and arranged singly or in groups of up to five in leaf axils.
Philotheca obovatifolia is a shrub that grows to a height of about and has glandular-warty branchlets. The leaves are densely clustered near the ends of the branchlets and are broadly egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long, wide with a prominent midrib on the lower surface. The flowers are arranged singly or in groups of up to five on a conspicuous peduncle up to long, each flower on a pedicel long. There are five triangular sepals and five elliptic to oblong cream-coloured petals long, wide and tinged with pink. The ten stamens are hairy. Flowering occurs in late spring and the fruit is about long with a beak about long.[1] [2] [3]
This philotheca was first formally described in 1998 by Michael J. Bayly who gave it the name Philotheca myoporoides subsp. obovatifolia and published the description in the journal Muelleria.[4] [5] In 2005 Paul Irwin Forster raised the subspecies to species status as Philotheca obovatifolia in the journal Austrobaileya.[6] [7]
Philotheca obovatifolia grows in heath and woodland on Mount Barney, Mount Lindesay and Mount Ernest in south-east Queensland and in Werrikimbe National Park in north-eastern New South Wales.
Philotheca obovatifolia is classified in New South Wales as "endangered" under the New South Wales Government Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. Only three populations are known in a small area in Werrikimbe National Park where the main threats to the species include inappropriate fire regimes, forestry activities and disturbance by feral pigs.