Walteranthus is a monotypic genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Gyrostemonaceae.[1] It only contains one known species, Walteranthus erectus.[2]
It is native to the state of Western Australia.[3] [4]
They are monoecious,[3] (meaning hermaphroditic, with male and female reproductive structures in separate flowers but on the same plant), short-lived shrubs.[5] The leaves are linear to narrowly elliptic in shape and somewhat succulent. The male flowers are in axillary racemes with the axis not growing out.[5] They have 9-12 stamens,[3] in 1 whorl. The female flowers are solitary, axillary and they are among the upper males and above them.It has 2-5 carpels,[3] united. The stylodia (an elongate stigma that resembles a style) is erect. The fruit (or seed capsule) is a hard indehiscent, slightly rugulose (finely wrinkled) syncarp.[1] The seeds are faintly rugose (wrinkled).[5]
The genus name of Walteranthus is in honour of Hans Paul Heinrich Walter (b. 1882), a German botanist who worked with Adolf Engler.[6] The Latin specific epithet of erectus means erect or upright.[7] Both the genus and the species were first described and published in Bot. Jahrb. Syst. Vol.106 on pages 108-110 in 1985.[2]
The genus is recognized by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural Research Service since 1994, but they do not list any known species.[8]