Erect Mallee Bluebush
Small Bushy Plant
Erect Mallee Bluebush
Several Plants
Animals
Plants
Info
| Erect Mallee Bluebush Small Bushy Plant | | Erect Mallee Bluebush Several Plants | | ||
Animals Plants Info |
 | Class: | Plants (Plantae) - Land Plants (Charophyta) - Land Plants (Equisetopsida) | ||||||||||||
| Order: | Betalains (Caryophyllales) | |||||||||||||
| Family: | Goosefoot (Chenopodiaceae) iNaturalist Observation | |||||||||||||
| Species: | Erect Mallee Bluebush (Maireana pentatropis)| This Photo: | 🔍Epicormic Growth🔎 | Thank you Dr Kym Nicolson & Tony and Jenny Dominelli (Cinclosoma) for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA), the Riverland and elsewhere Cylindrical, succulent, hairless, green leaves on long woolly stems. Plants can be a single stem to 1m high, or multiples, and they can also be small and bushy. Generally healthier plants are tall and lanky, with grazed/damaged/young plants are bushy. Seedlings & young leaves are covered in fine hair making them look quite fluffy. Flowers are tiny white at the base of the leaves on the stem. As with other Maireanas, in summer the plant takes nutrients from the leaves, leaving the leaves to shrivel up into black husks. The fruit is similar to Rosy Bluebush (M. ericolada) on first appearance. It's best to find mature fruits to separate them. Here, the fruit looks like it's pinched in the middle, on the top, with white hairs/fur poking out. The back of the fruit has small fins which are very difficult to see on fruit laden stems. When young, the fins meet the wing on the extremities, but with age the wing expands hiding the fins. This is quite different to Rosy Bluebush, where the fins are quite prominent and grow with the wing. We've recently added a heavily damaged mature plant. Interestingly the lower half has the appearance of a seedling, yet mature leaves above; it's appears to be epicormic growth.
| |||||||||||