Pimelea


Pimelea, commonly known as rice flowers, is a genus of plants belonging to the family Thymelaeaceae. There are about 150 species, including 110 in Australia and thirty six in New Zealand.

Description

Plants in the genus Pimelea are herbs or small shrubs usually with leaves arranged in opposite pairs. The leaves are usually paler on the lower surface and the petiole is usually very short. The flowers are usually arranged in groups on the ends of the branches and have no petals but four petal-like sepals and two stamens. The ovary has a single ovule and the fruit is usually a nut containing a single seed.

Taxonomy and naming

The genus Pimelea was first formally described in 1788 by Joseph Gaertner from unpublished descriptions by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. The first species Gaertner described was Pimelea laevigata, now known as Pimelea prostrata.
The name Pimelea is from the Ancient Greek word pimele meaning "fat or "lard", possibly referring to the oily seeds or fleshy cotyledons of riceflowers.

Ecology

Some species, including P. curviflora, P. flava, P. glauca, P. linifolia, P. microcephala, P. neo-anglica, P. pauciflora, P. simplex and P. trichostachya are known to be toxic to stock.

Species

About 150 species of Pimelea have been formally described, including about 110 in Australia and 36 in New Zealand. The following is a combined list of species from the Australian Plant Census and the New Zealand Plant Conservation Network:
In 2017, Anthony Bean published a paper in the journal Austrobaileya in which he described the following new species and reinstated previously named species from Queensland, but the names have not yet been assessed by the APC: