Taxandria callistachys

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(c) Russell Cumming, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Callistachys from the Greek calli - beautiful and stachys - flower spike.

Occurs from Esperance to Cape Paisley, with a western outlier population in Ravensthorpe. Grows in heath or shrubland, usually associated with swamps or winter-wet areas near granitic outcrops.

An upright shrub to 2.5 m tall. The leaves are 10-25 mm long and up to about 2 mm wide, stalkless or almost so, concave above and convex below.

The flowers are in clusters either axillary or on short shoots. Bracts and bracteoles wooly. The sepals are triangular and usually sparsely hairy to hairy though they may be glabrous. Petals white. Stamens 10, one opposite each sepal and petal.

Fruits in roughly globular clusters, typically 6-8 mm across. Each capsule ovoid 2–2.5 mm across, hairless or downy.

Flowers mostly March to September, the petals persisting for several months. Fruits mostly September to January with the fruits remaining for 2 or 3 years.


(c) geoffbyrne, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


(c) geoffbyrne, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


(c) Arthur Chapman, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA)

All photographs (c) Keith Morris, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) unless otherwise indicated.

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