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The Western Australian Herbarium’s collections management system, WAHerb, and DBCA’s flora taxonomic names application, WACensus, have been set to read-only mode since 1 October 2025. Recent taxonomic changes are not currently being reflected in Florabase, herbarium collections, or the census. Due to the rapidly approaching holiday season and associated agency and facility soft closures, along with the substantial work involved in data mapping, cleaning, and verification, the migration to the new collection management software is not expected to occur before 1 March 2026, when a further update will be provided. Please reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns.

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Astrotricha DC.

Reference
Coll.Mém. 5:29, t. 5, 6 (1829)
Name Status
Current

Scientific Description

Family Araliaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Shrubs; bearing essential oils, or without essential oils; resinous. Plants with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves. Self supporting (usually strongly erect). Often pachycaul. Not heterophyllous. Leaves alternate; leathery; petiolate (usually), or subsessile; sheathing, or non-sheathing. Leaf sheaths with free margins. Leaves gland-dotted, or not gland-dotted; aromatic, or without marked odour; simple; not peltate, or peltate (rarely). Leaf blades entire; pinnately veined, or palmately veined; cordate, or cuneate at the base, or rounded at the base. Leaves without stipules. Leaf blade margins flat to revolute. Vegetative buds scaly. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hairs present (usually, on underside of leaves); complex hairs usually present. Complex hairs stellate. Stem anatomy. Nodes multilacunar, or penta-lacunar, or tri-lacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in umbels. Inflorescences arranged in terminal panicles, often with 3 or 4 orders of branching, often leaf-interrupted near base. Flowers bracteolate; 5 merous. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; lobed; minutely 5- toothed; often open in bud. Corolla 5; 1 -whorled; polypetalous; imbricate, or valvate; regular; hairy abaxially, or glabrous abaxially (rarely); glabrous adaxially; white to cream, or yellow, or purple. Androecium 5. Androecial members free of the perianth; free of one another. Stamens 5; isomerous with the perianth. Anthers dehiscing via longitudinal slits; tetrasporangiate. Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 2 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious; inferior, or superior. Ovary plurilocular; 2 locular. Epigynous disk present. Styles 2; free (becoming recurved). Stigmas wet type, or dry type; papillate; Group II type and Group III type. Placentation apical. Ovules 1(–2) per locule; pendulous; epitropous; anatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit non-fleshy; a schizocarp. Mericarps 2, or 1 (when one aborted); with or without wings. Seeds 1 per mericarp. Seeds endospermic. Endosperm oily. Cotyledons 2. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.

Physiology, biochemistry. Aluminium accumulation not found. Photosynthetic pathway: C3.

Geography, cytology, number of species. Native of Australia. Not endemic to Australia. Australian states and territories: Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria.