Boronia tetragona

Boronia tetragona is a species of plant in the citrus family, Rutaceae, and is endemic to a small area of the southwest of Western Australia. It is an erect, glabrous, perennial herb with simple, sessile leaves and pink, four-petalled flowers.

Boronia tetragona

Priority Three — Poorly Known Taxa (DEC)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Sapindales
Family: Rutaceae
Genus: Boronia
Species:
B. tetragona
Binomial name
Boronia tetragona

Description

Boronia tetragona is an erect, glabrous, perennial herb that grows to a height of 70 cm (28 in). Its stems are more or less square in cross-section with a smooth, sharp rib on each corner. The leaves are sessile, elliptic to egg-shaped or triangular, up to 40 mm (1.6 in) long and have warty edges. The flowers are borne in umbels on the ends of the branches on a thin peduncle up to 20 mm (0.79 in) long, the individual flowers on a thin pedicel up to 10 mm (0.39 in) long. There are smooth, dark red bracts at the base of the flowers. The four sepals are dark red and about 3 mm (0.12 in) long. The four petals are pink with a darker midline, egg-shaped and about 7 mm (0.3 in) long with a rounded tip. The eight stamens have warty glands near the tip. Flowering occurs from October to December.[2][3][4]

Taxonomy and naming

Boronia tetragona was first formally described in 1998 by Paul Wilson and the description was published in Nuytsia from a specimen collected by Gregory John Keighery near Busselton.[5][2] Wilson derived the specific epithet (tetragona) from the Greek words tetra meaning "four" and gona meaning "angle", referring to the four-sided branches.[2] Other sources give tessares (τέσσαρες) and gōnia (γωνία) as the Greek words for "four" and "angle".[6]

Distribution and habitat

This boronia grows in open woodland sometimes with sedges, between Capel and the Whicher Range in the Jarrah Forest and Swan Coastal Plain biogeographic regions.[2][3]

Conservation

Boronia tetragona is classified as "Priority Three" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Parks and Wildlife,[3] meaning that it is poorly known and known from only a few locations but is not under imminent threat.[7]

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References
  1. "Boronia tetragona". Australian Plant Census. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
  2. Wilson, Paul G. (1998). "New names and new taxa in the genus Boronia (Rutaceae) from Western Australia, with notes on seed characters". Nuytsia. 12 (1): 140–141. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
  3. "Boronia tetragona". FloraBase. Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.
  4. Duretto, Marco F.; Wilson, Paul G.; Ladiges, Pauline Y. "Boronia tetragona". Australian Biological Resources Study, Department of the Environment and Energy, Canberra. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
  5. "Boronia tetragona". APNI. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
  6. Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie.Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  7. "Conservation codes for Western Australian Flora and Fauna" (PDF). Government of Western Australia Department of Parks and Wildlife. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
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