Dysphania cristata
(F.Muell.) Mosyakin & ClemantsPleasantly aromatic, prostrate or weakly ascending annual, with stems rarely exceeding 30 cm long. Stems and leaves sparsely covered with both septate eglandular and sessile or shortly stalked glandular hairs. Leaves petiolate, ovate to elliptic, 5–15(–c. 30) mm long, 3–7(–15) mm wide, with entire, bluntly toothed or sinuate margins. Flowers in small, dense axillary clusters; tepals 5, shortly united at base, triangular in longitudinal section, prominently crested by a pubescent, laciniate dorsal ridge; stamen solitary or absent; pericarp membranous, closely adherent to seed, usually sparsely and minutely papillate. Seed erect, c. 0.7 mm diam., dark red-brown, with a very narrow flange around the apical margin, remaining enclosed by enlarged fruiting perianth. Flowers mostly Apr.–Oct.
LoM, MuM, MSB, RobP, MuF. Also WA, NT, SA, Qld, NSW. Confined in Victoria to the far north-west where occasional on heavier soils in flat country, dune swales and lake margins.
Walsh, N.G. (1996). Chenopodiaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 3, Dicotyledons Winteraceae to Myrtaceae, pp. 129–199. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
Spinning
