Ricinocarpos caniana is a species of flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae and is endemic to a restricted area of south-eastern Queensland. It is an erect monoecious or dioecious shrub with linear leaves and white flowers, arranged either singly, with two to five male flowers, or a single female flower surrounded by up to four male flowers.
Ricinocarpos caniana is an erect, monoecious or dioecious shrub that typically grows to height of up to, its young branchlets densely covered with greyish-white, star-shaped hairs. The leaves are linear, long and wide on a densely hairy petiole long. The upper surface of the leaves soon becomes glabrous and the lower surface is silky-hairy. The flowers are arranged either as a single male or female flower, or as clusters of two to five male flowers, or with a single female flower surrounded by up to four male flowers. Male flowers are on a slender, densely hairy pedicel long, the sepals joined at the base and densely hairy, the sepal lobes egg-shaped to elliptic and long, the petals white and egg-shaped, long and wide. Each male flower has about 50 stamens. Female flowers are on a stout, hairy pedicel long, the sepal lobes long and long and the petals white and egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base and long. Flowering has been observed in August, and the fruit is a more or less spherical capsule in diameter and covered with star-shaped hairs.[1]
Ricinocarpos caniana was first formally described in 2007 by David Halford and Rodney Henderson in the journal Austrobaileya from specimens collected in Cania Gorge National Park in 1999.[2] The specific epithet (caniana) is derived from the name of the type location.
This species is only known from the type location in south-eastern Queensland, where it grows in forest with a dense shrubby understorey, between sandstone rocks on a steep scree slope.[1]