Flowers and leaves. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Flower, fruiting bodies, and leaves. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Flowering plant. Photo: Else Foster, Culpra Station, west of Euston, NSW

Common Name

Shrubby Twinleaf

Family

Zygophyllaceae

Notes

Shrub to 50cm tall, occasionally sprawling on other shrubs.  Leaves opposite each other, with two succulent lobes (with an obvious junction between the basal section of the leaf and the leaflets), 0.2-1.5cm long, 1-2mm wide, linear to cylindrical, hairless, the tips blunt, notched, or occasionally 3-lobed.  Flowers yellow, with 4 petals, borne singly at the bases of the leaves.  Fruiting body with 4 wings.

Differs from Zygophyllum eremaeum in that the fruiting bodies break into 4 fruitlets, each with a seed, and that the petals are 5.5-11mm long.

Description and photo (page 439), and line drawing of fruiting body (Fig. 53c page 440) (as  Zygophyllum aurantiacum) in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales

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