Commersonia amystia is a species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae and endemic to eastern Australia. It is a dwarf shrub with narrow egg-shaped leaves that are densely covered with star-like hairs on the lower surface, and has flowers with five white sepals that turn pink as they age, and five smaller white petals.
Commersonia amystia is a dwarf, prostrate to low-lying shrub that typically grows to a height of Шаблон:Cvt and has densely hairy branchlets. Juvenile leaves have three lobes and are up to Шаблон:Cvt long and Шаблон:Cvt wide with small serrations in the edges. The adult leaves are narrow egg-shaped, Шаблон:Cvt long and Шаблон:Cvt wide on a petioleШаблон:Cvt long. They are covered with white star-like hairs, densely so on the lower surface, and have wavy or irregularly-toothed edges. The flowers are usually arranged in groups of two to four, the groups on a hairy peduncleШаблон:Cvt long, the individual flowers on hairy pedicelsШаблон:Cvt long. The flowers have five white, petal-like sepals, sometimes pink at the base, Шаблон:Cvt long, and five white, cup-shaped petals about Шаблон:Cvt long and wide, red near the base with a white liguleШаблон:Cvt long on the end. Five white staminodes surround the central stye. Flowering occurs from August to October and the fruit is a capsuleШаблон:Cvt long and Шаблон:Cvt wide, densely-covered with soft white hairs and bristles.[1][2]
This commersonia grows in rock crevices in woodland and is known from populations near Inverell in New South Wales and in the Ballandean-Stanthorpe in Queensland.[1][2]
Ecology
Commersonia amystia appears to be killed by fire but to germinate abundantly after, then appears to become senescent a few years later.[2]