Spyridium × ramosissimum, commonly known as branched spyridium,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Rhamnaceae and is endemic to Victoria in Australia. It is a small shrub with woolly-hairy branches, egg-shaped leaves, and crowded heads of hairy flowers with brown bracts.
Spyridium × ramosissimum is a shrub that typically grows to a height of, its branches covered with woolly hairs. The leaves are egg-shaped to lance-shaped, long, wide and glabrous with prominent veins. The edges of the leaves curve slightly downwards, the upper surface greyish-green and the lower surface silky- or rusty-hairy with a prominent midvein. The heads of flowers are crowded with egg-shaped, brown bracts at the base, each head with only a few flowers. The sepals are long, woolly-hairy and longer than the petals. Flowering occurs from August to October and the fruit is a capsule about long.[2]
This species was first formally described in 1922 by James Wales Claredon Audas who gave it the name Trymalium × ramosissimum in The Victorian Naturalist from specimens collected on Mount Difficult in the Grampians.[3] [4] In 2006, Jürgen Kellermann changed the name to Spyridium × ramosissimum in the journal Muelleria.[5]
Spyridium × ramosissimum is a hybrid between S. daltonii and S. parvifolium and is only known from the Grampians, where both parent species occur. It is not known to produce seed.