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Lythrum hyssopifolia
These plants had a rosette of prostrate stems with slightly thick long blade leaves. The purple flowers were about 5 mm wide with tubular corollas and 6 petals. Every petal had a dark purple streak in the middle, was thin and had a slightly crinkled margin..
Growing as a ground cover in semi-shade in a dry sclerophyll forest.
Occurrence record:
http://bie.ala.org.au/species/urn:lsid:b...
My thanks to Vinny for the ID and information.
Also called Small or Lesser Loosestrife
Family: Lythraceae
Spotted on Nov 28, 2014
Submitted on Nov 30, 2014
3 Comments
Thank you for the ID and resources Vinny. I believe you helped my husband a few days ago - should have chatted to him !. I'll go with L. hyssopifolia. It's growth characteristics look more like this species than L.junceum. Also, it's everywhere in the Yarra Ranges.
looking a bit closer, there are red dots at the base of the flower.
Looks very similar to the last pic in this forum discussion http://www.infojardin.com/foro/showthrea...
Close ups of L. hyssopifolia flowers seem to have less distinct red dots http://www.actaplantarum.org/acta/galler...
Lythrum hyssopifolia seems likely, L. junceum is a very similar exotic, which apparently has red dots near the base of the petals.