Eremaea Lindl.

Scientific Description

Common name. Eremaeas. Family Myrtaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs; evergreen; bearing essential oils. Plants with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves; to 0.3–3.5 m high. Leptocaul. Helophytic to xerophytic. Leaves minute to small; alternate; ‘herbaceous’, or leathery; petiolate, or subsessile; gland-dotted; aromatic; simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades dorsiventral, or isobilateral, or centric; entire; flat, or solid; terete; linear, or lanceolate, or oblong, or ovate; linear, or ovate, or obovate, or oblong, or elliptic; pinnately veined, or parallel-veined, or one-veined; cross-venulate, or without cross-venules. Mature leaf blades adaxially glabrous, or pilose, or woolly; abaxially glabrous, or pilose, or woolly. Leaves without stipules; without a persistent basal meristem. Stem anatomy. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Entomophilous, or ornithophilous. Pollination mechanism unspecialized.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers solitary (apparently), or aggregated in ‘inflorescences’. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose. Inflorescences axillary, or terminal (apparently, in species where the flowers are the first growth following winter dormancy); usually a ‘monad’, a conflorescence reduced to a single flower, in some species the monads occurring in close association with each other to form clusters of up to 9 flowers; with involucral bracts, or without involucral bracts. Flowers sessile; bracteate; bracteolate, or ebracteolate; small to medium-sized; fragrant; regular; cyclic. Free hypanthium present (petals ‘inserted on the calyx’); campanulate; not extending beyond ovary, or extending beyond ovary; glabrous or variously indumented. Hypogynous disk present. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10 (usually), or 9–11; 2 -whorled; isomerous, or anisomerous. Calyx present; 5, or 4–6 (in E. asterocarpa subsp. histoclada); 1 -whorled; polysepalous, or gamosepalous (depending on interpretation); lobed; imbricate, or valvate; regular; green, or brown; persistent, or not persistent. Sepals triangular. Calyx lobes triangular. Corolla present; 5; 1 -whorled; polypetalous; imbricate; regular; white, or orange, or red, or pink, or violet; deciduous. Androecial members indefinite in number. Androecium 65–350. Androecial members branched. Androecial sequence determinable, or not determinable. Androecial members maturing centripetally; free of the perianth; all equal; coherent (bundled, the staminal claws free or fused slightly to form a ring); 5 - adelphous. The androecial groups opposite the petals. Stamens 65–350; attached on the rim of the hypanthium; becoming exserted (exceeding the petals); all more or less similar in shape; polystemonous; alternisepalous; all opposite the corolla members; erect in bud, or inflexed in bud. Filaments not geniculate. Anthers all alike; basifixed; erect; non-versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits (slits can be diagonal); more or less latrorse; tetrasporangiate. Gynoecium 3 carpelled. The pistil 3 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; eu-syncarpous; inferior, or partly inferior. Ovary plurilocular; 3 locular. Ovary summit hairy, the hairs not confined to radiating bands. Epigynous disk present, or absent. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; simple; apical. Stigmas 1. Placentation axile. Ovules differentiated (these wingless); (7–)10–14(–23) per locule; ascending; arranged generally with 2 or 4 in the central area and a ring of up to 15 around the periphery; non-arillate; anatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit sessile; non-fleshy (woody); not hairy; not spinose; dehiscent; a capsule (3-valved). Capsules septicidal, or loculicidal, or denticidal, or circumscissile. Fruit 1–6 seeded (the remaining ovules becoming chaff). Seeds non-endospermic; minute to small; winged. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight, or curved (slightly, from compression against the ovary wall).

Geography, cytology, number of species. Native of Australia. Endemic to Australia. Australian states and territories: Western Australia. South-West Botanical Province.

Etymology. From the Greek eremaios, poetic word for solitary; refers to the flowers being terminal on shoots.