Flowers close up (ssp. simplex). Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, about 180km north of Broken Hill, NSW

Flowers and leaves (ssp. simplex). Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, about 180km north of Broken Hill, NSW

Flowering plant (ssp. simplex). Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, about 180km north of Broken Hill, NSW

Common Name

Desert Rice-flower

Family

Thymelaeaceae

Notes

Annual forb becoming woody at the base, to 50cm tall.  Leaves alternating up the stems, 0.3-2.5cm long, 0.75-4mm wide, linear to flat, with scattered hairs, often becoming hairless.  Flowers have a strong sweet aroma around sunset and sunrise.  Flowers greenish or greenish yellow to white, tubular, with 4 lobes, in dense spherical to cylindrical clusters at the tops of the stems.  Rare Vic (ssp. simplex).

Pimelea simplex ssp. simplex: Flower stalks to 16.5mm long, flower clusters remaining condensed or elongating to 10mm long at maturity. Slender plants with stems red at the base.

Pimelea simplex ssp. continua: Flower stalks to 35mm long, flower clusters elongating, usually 10-18mm long at maturity. Sturdy plants with stems green or brown at the base.

Differs from Pimelea trichostachya in that the flower clusters are 1-1.8cm long.

Description and photo in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales pages 507-508

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Pimelea~simplex