Prostanthera walteri explained

Prostanthera walteri, commonly known as blotchy mint-bush, is a species of flowering plant that is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It is a sprawling shrub with tangled, hairy branches, egg-shaped leaves and usually bluish green flowers with prominent purple veins arranged singly in leaf axils.

Description

Prostanthera walteri is a sprawling shrub that typically grows to a height of and has hairy, glandular, often tangled, wiry branches. The leaves are egg-shaped, mostly long and wide on a petiole long. The lower surface of the leaves is hairy and the upper is grooved and more or less glabrous. The flowers are arranged singly in leaf axils on a hairy pedicel long with bracteoles long at the base of the sepals. The sepals are long, forming a tube long with two lobes long. The petals are long, forming a tube long and usually bluish green with prominent purple veins. The lower middle lobe of the tube is long and wide, the side lobes long and wide, the upper lobe is broadly egg-shaped, long and wide with a central notch about deep. Flowering occurs in summer.[1] [2] [3]

Taxonomy and naming

Prostanthera walteri was formally described in 1870 by Victorian Government Botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in the seventh volume of Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae, based on plant material collected by Carl Walter at Mount Ellery in East Gippsland. The specific epithet (walteri) honours the collector of the type specimens.[4] [5] [6]

Distribution and habitat

Blotchy mint-bush occurs on granitic soils in forests in New South Wales south from Mount Imlay to East Gippsland in north-eastern Victoria.[7]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Prostanthera walteri . 4 January 2013 . PlantNET - New South Wales Flora Online . Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust, Sydney Australia.
  2. Web site: Ohlsen . Daniel . Messina . Andre . Prostanthera walteri . Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria . 7 October 2020.
  3. Conn . Barry J. . A taxonomic revision of Prostanthera Labill. Section Klanderia (F.v.Muell.) Benth. (Labiatae). . Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens . 1984 . 6 . 3 . 336–338 . 7 October 2020.
  4. Web site: Prostanthera walteri. APNI. 7 October 2020.
  5. Book: von Mueller . Ferdinand . Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae` . 1870 . Victorian Government Printer . Melbourne . 108–109 . 7 October 2020.
  6. Web site: Walter, Carl (1831 - 1907). Biographical Notes. Australian National Herbarium. 29 December 2013.
  7. Book: Wild Plants of Victoria (database). 2009 . Viridans Biological Databases & Department of Sustainability and Environment.