NEW SOUTH WALES FLORA ONLINE

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Synonyms: Plectranthus suaveolens S.T.Blake APNI*

Description: Openly branched, suffrutescent, semi-erect to erect shrub to 0.8 m high with a distinctively silvery dense indumentum. Producing a more or less sweet scent or perfume (akin to Lavender) when touched or crushed. Branches densely covered with retrorse nonglandular hairs, sparsely covered with glandrular trichomes and, extremely rarely, with orange sessile glands. Does not form a distinctive tuber. Sessile multicellular glands 8-celled and orange.

Leaves discolorous, hoary, coloured multicellular sessile glands rare to absent; lamina ovate to broadly ovate, 30–75 mm long, 20–60 mm wide, apex obtusely rounded, base subtruncate to very broadly cuneate, margin crenate or crenate-dentate with 5–10 pairs of teeth; upper surface veins deeply impressed, with densely distributed non-glandular and glandular hairs sparse; lower surface veins strongly raised, indumentum similar to upper surface with fewer glandular hairs.

Inflorescence up to 350 mm long, consisting of 3–5 racemose branches, verticillasters 10–12-flowered. Pedicel 1.5–4 mm long. Calyx 2–2.7 mm long. Corolla blue to violet, white along midvein of lateral lobes, 9–12 mm long; tube curved downwards 120°–130°. Stamen not extending past lower corolla lobe, pollen orange. Style included or extending just past the lower corolla lobe.

Fruiting calyx accrescent, 4.5–5 mm long. Mericarp subcircular in outline, flattened, 0.8–0.85 mm long, 0.75–0.85 wide.

Type Specimen

Flowering: from September to May.

Distribution and occurrence: Occurs north from Oxley Wild Rivers National Park New South Wales to the eastern mountain ranges of southern Queensland.

Grows on sides of cliffs and ledges, rocky slopes, pavements associated with heath at forest margins or riparian areas.
NSW subdivisions: NC
Other Australian states: Qld

AVH map***

Occurs with other Coleus species, including C. alloplectus in NSW.