Description: Spreading shrub to 3 m. high; bark smooth and deciduous throughout, orange or green coloured, peeling in ribbons. Branchlets with conspicuous stem flanges, pubescence sparse and mainly on margins of stem flanges.
Leaves alternate, subsessile, discolorous, narrowly elliptic, 18–25 x 2.7–5.0 mm, apex obtuse or mucronate, margins of young leaves with silky hairs, otherwise glabrous.
Inflorescence axillary, comprising 1–3 bracteolate monads, floral bracts shed before anthesis. Flowers with pedicels c. 1.2 mm long at anthesis; hypanthium glabrous, c. 3 mm long, sepals obtuse, 1.2–1.4 mm long, inner and outer surfaces glabrous, margins ciliate; petals white, obovate to orbicular, 2.6–2.7 mm long, oil glands present. Stamens 1.5–2 mm long, anthers versatile, cells parallel; stigma capitate; roof of ovary glabrous. Ovary three locular.
Fruit thin walled, campanulate to hemisherical, 2.5–3 mm long, 4–4.7 mm diameter, glabrous; sepals sparsely hairy, persistent. Seeds pale brown, obovoid to ellipsoidal, reticulate, 0.8–0.9 mm long.
Flowering: Flowering recorded for November, fruits from March to May.
Distribution
Aggreflorum benwellii is restricted to the Mount Munningyundo area in Nymboida National Park, approximately 50 km west of Grafton in New South Wales
Habitat and ecology
- The species typically occurs in open shrubland communities and is often
associated with stunted canopy species in the upper stratum. Commonly associated with Eucalyptus
campanulata and E. notabilis in the upper stratum, Plectranthus graveolens,
Acacia falciformis and Ozothamnus diosmifolius in the mid storey stratum, and
Themeda triandra, Xanthorrhoea malacophylla and Stylidium laricifolium in the
understorey. Known populations occur at elevations of 900 to 1000 m above sea
level.
Regional distribution and habitat
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