Stackhousia monogyna, commonly known as creamy stackhousia or creamy candles,[1] is a flowering plant in the family Celastraceae. It is a small multi-stemmed plant with narrow leaves and terminal spikes of white, cream or yellow flowers. It is a widespread species found in all states of Australia but not the Northern Territory.
Stackhousia monogyna is a slender, multi-stemmed, perennial herb to high, covered with soft hairs or smooth on upright or ascending stems. The leaves are dark green, mostly narrow, linear to lance-shaped, up to long, wide and rounded, acute or with a short point at the apex. The inflorescence consists of numerous white, cream or yellow flowers in a densely-packed cylindrical spike, each flower is tubular with five pointed spreading lobes up to long. Flowering occurs from late winter to early summer and the fruit is a wide oval or ellipsoid shaped mericarp, wrinkled to veined and long.[2] [3]
The species was described in 1861 by Ferdinand von Mueller as Desdemodium acanthocladum.[4] [5] In 1805 French naturalist Jacques Labillardière changed the name to Stackhousia monogyna and the description was published in Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen.[6] [7] The specific epithet (monogyna) means "one", probably referring to the one-seeded fruit.[8]
Creamy stackhousia is a common widespread species growing in grassland and dry forest on gravel, clay and granite in all states of Australia but not the Northern Territory.[1] [3]