NEW SOUTH WALES FLORA ONLINE

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Description: Loosely tufted rhizomatous perennial herb to c. 50 cm high.

Leaves basal, linear to linear-ensiform, 23–66 cm long, 1.4–2.8 (–4.0) mm wide, dull green, with matted appressed fawn-coloured hairs on the faces, longer white hairs on the margins.

Scapes (0.5–) 21–60 cm long, pubescent. Spathe pair 35–50 mm long, greyish-brown to mid-brown, with numerous close parallel veins. Perianth tube white 5–20 mm long; outer tepals, broadly elliptic-obovate, 16–25(–30) mm long, 12–20(–25) mm wide pink; inner lobes obovate to obcuneate, c. 2 mm long. Filaments 3.5–5.0 mm long, connate. Ovary ± cylindrical, hairy.

Capsules narrowly ovoid to ellipsoid or narrowly obovoid, 13–21 mm long. Seeds cylindrical-fusiform to narrowly ovoid, 3.2–4.8 mm long, pale brown, aril extending from the non-attachment to almost the opposite end, linear, cream-stramineous when dry.

Habitat Photo D. Albrecht

Flower Photo R. Jobson

Fruit Photo J. FitzGerald

Flowering: December–January

Distribution and occurrence: Charmhaven – Wyee area on the New South Wales central coast. Single specimen collected from Laurieton on north coast in 1915. Molecular phylogenetic analysis that included samples from recent 2025 collections at Wyee, Lake Munmorah, and Laurieton provides evidence of additional extant populations of P. rosea.

Sedgeland with an open stratum of emergent sclerophyllous shrubs.
NSW subdivisions: NC, CC

Threatened species: NSW BCA: Critically Endangered

AVH map***

The NSW Threatened Species Scientific Committee has made a determination for provisional listing, on an emergency basis, of Patersonia rosea Branwhite as a critically endangered species in Part 1 of Schedule 1 of the Act. Future population genetic studies across its geographic range will provide important demographic information for conservation management.