Eremophila denticulata

Eremophila denticulata will grow into a shrub, with many branches, to 3 metres tall, spreading to just as wide.

It is endemic to the southern area of Western Australia, growing in two disjunct patches; one patch around the Ravensthorpe area – extening north towards Lake King and south towards Hopetoun; then with the second occurrence further east in Cape Arid National Park, north-east of Condingup. These two occurrences comprise two subspecies taxa (see information below).

It is a rare plant in the wild with the subspecies taxa listed as threatened with extinction in the wild at the Commonwealth level.

It grows in mallee shrubland and heathland on river-beds and creeks and associated plains, on sandy or lateritic soils.

Eremophila spp. mostly have simple and alternate leaves (sometimes opposite or whorled). In this species, leaves are slightly sticky to the touch, alternate, lanceolate to elliptic, with distinctive small teeth around the margins (hence the second common name), to about 60 mm long and 15 mm wide; mid-green in colour.

Eremophila spp. have 5-merous flowers with the 5 petals usually fused into a tube (tubulate to campanulate) with 5 petal-lobes (often described as 2-lipped with 3 upper lobes and 2 lower), occurring in small-numbered clusters per leaf axil. Flowers are often curved. In this species, tubular flowers are initially yellow but mature to red, to about 30 mm long, produced singuarly in leaf axils and bearing some hairs. The main flowering period is between September and March. Sporadic flowering will occur at other times. The nectar-rich flowers are carried on characteristic “S” shaped pedicels or flower stalks.

The fruit is dry, ovate, to about 15 mm long.