Gynatrix pulchella (Willd.) Alef.

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Credits

Julian Sutton (2022)

Recommended citation
Sutton, J. (2022), 'Gynatrix pulchella' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/gynatrix/gynatrix-pulchella/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

Common Names

  • Native Hemp Bush

Synonyms

  • Plagianthus pulchellus (Willd.) A. Gray
  • Sida pulchella Willd.

Evergreen shrub (rarely a small tree) to 5 m. Branchlets glabrous. Leaves alternate, petiolate, with small, lanceolate stipules. Leaf blade narrowly ovate to lanceolate, 4–10(–15) × 1.5–3(–6) cm wide, with palmato-pinnate veining; base cordate, apex acute or acuminate, margins crenate; upper surface green, glabrous; lower surface sometimes slightly paler, with sparse stellate hairs. Plant dioecious, rarely hermaphrodite, with flowers in small axillary panicles, or glomerulate along lateral branches. Male flowers on short pedicels; sepals 2–4 mm, triangular, glabrous or with scattered stellate hairs; petals creamy white, obovate, about twice as long as the sepals; stamens 20–30, with filaments extending beyond the tip of the staminal column; carpels 5, abortive. Female flowers sessile; petals oblong scarcely longer than the calyx, persistent; anthers sterile, sessile at apex of staminal column; carpels 5, styles free, exserted from the staminal tube, thickened and stigmatic from about the middle, ovary with 5 locules, each with a single ovule. Fruit 6–8 mm diameter, longer than the calyx, schizocarpic (mericarps splitting away from the persistent axis). Flowering spring (August–October in Victoria). (Walsh & Entwisle 1997; Curtis & Morris 1975; Melville 1966)

Distribution  Australia Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia

Habitat Understorey in riparian forest; streamsides; shady scrubland.

USDA Hardiness Zone 9-10

RHS Hardiness Rating H3

Conservation status Not evaluated (NE)

This creamy-white-flowered shrub of modest beauty is hardy only in milder parts of our area, where it has occasionally been grown since the early 19th century.

As a wild plant G. pulchella is usually found in wetter habitats, although at least in the Otway Ranges of southern Victoria it is found in rain shadow as well as high rainfall areas (Otway Greening 2023). Moist soil in full sun to light shade is most likely to suit it in the garden (Conservation Collective 2023). Fast-growing (Bean 1976, who described it as Plagianthus pulchellus), it can prove short-lived, but regenerates well from coppicing (Otway Greening 2023). Small, fragrant flowers are its chief attraction, borne in spring in the wild. In European gardens it flowers from late winter under glass (Bonpland 1813; Hooker 1827) but as late as July if unprotected (Bean 1976). The male plants are decidedly more attractive, with their larger-petalled flowers on pedicels rather than congested around the stems. It is readily raised from seed, which is sometimes available from native seed specialists in Australia (Otway Greening 2023; Conservation Collective 2023).

Gynatrix pulchella has a long but probably sporadic history as a rare plant in European gardens. It was recorded (as Sida pulchella) in Empress Josephine’s garden at the Château de Malmaison, Paris, by Bonpland (1813), who considered it ‘un joli arbrisseau’ (a pretty shrub), noting its fragrance. Probably collected by Nicolas Baudin’s 1800–1803 expedition to the Australian coast, which had been approved by Napoleon Bonaparte himself, it was overwintered in an orangery. Hooker (1827) illustrated it (again as Sida pulchella) from plants grown at Glasgow Botanic Garden from both Tasmanian and mainland seed. The Glasgow plants survived at least two winters, one of them ‘very severe’, in a sheltered situation outdoors, although flowers were seen only in the greenhouse (Hooker 1827). The species has very occasionally figured in European reference books since then (Bean 1976; Huxley, Griffiths & Levy 1992) but we have been unable to trace living material in cultivation at present. G. pulchella is apparently unknown in North American gardens, although it might be worth trying both in the Southeast and on the Pacific coast.

Walsh (1996) described the previously unrecognized G. macrophylla from eastern Victoria. It differs from G. pulchella in its larger, more broadly ovate leaves ((4–)6–12(–20) × (2.5–)4–9(–14) cm versus 4–10(–15) × 1.5–3(–6) cm), which are densely and evenly stellate-pubescent beneath, and have more pronouncedly cordate bases and less attenuated apices. Its flowers are up to twice as large in all parts.