Maireana erioclada
(Benth.) Paul G.Wilson Rosy BluebushGlaucous shrub to c. 60 cm high; branchlets closely white-woolly with longer coppery hairs in axils. Leaves alternate, narrowly obovoid or clavate, 7–15 mm long, fleshy, glabrous, grey or bluish-green or sometimes tinged pink. Flowers bisexual, margins of perianth lobes ciliate, otherwise glabrous. Fruiting perianth 10–13 mm diam., wholly glabrous or margins of perianth lobes ciliate, slightly convex, usually conspicuously pinkish when young, drying to brown; tube obconical, c. 4 mm diam. at apex, with 5 broad, rounded, papery, vertical wings to c. 4 mm wide attached from base to apex and united with the flat, circular horizontal wing at the apex; radicular slit present on upper wing, not extending down tube. Fruits Aug.–Nov.
LoM, MuM, RobP. Also WA, SA, NSW. Occasional on sandy loams on flat ground or in subsaline depressions in the far north-west (e.g. Pink Lakes, Hattah Lakes, Annuello, Nowingi, Sunset Country).
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.