Pimelea milliganii, commonly known as silver riceflower[1] or Milligan's rice flower,[2] is a species of flowering plant in the family Thymelaeaceae and is endemic to a restricted part of Tasmania. It is a low, much-branched, densely hairy shrub with more or less elliptic leaves and compact clusters of white to pinkish flowers usually surrounded by two leaf-like involucral bracts.
Pimelea milliganii is a low, much-branched, densely hairy shrub or undershrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has densely hairy young stems. The leaves are silvery and more or less elliptic, long and wide on a short petiole. The flowers are white to pinkish, long, and arranged in compact clusters of 7 to 15 on hairy pedicels, usually surrounded by 2 leaf-like involucral bracts. The floral tube is long, the sepals long. Flowering has been observed between December and March.[3]
Pimelea milliganii was first formally described in 1857 by Carl Meissner in 1845 in de Candolle's Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis from specimens collected by Joseph Milligan near Macquarie Harbour.[4] [5]
This pimelea is restricted to the Queenstown area of western Tasmania where it grows in alpine heath on mountain summits at altitudes of between .
Pimelea milliganii is listed as "rare" under the Tasmanian Government Threatened Species Protection Act 1995.