Ricinocarpos psilocladus
Ricinocarpos psilocladus is a flowering plant in the Euphorbiaceae family, found only on the west coast of Western Australia.
Description
It is an erect, open shrub up to about 1.8 meters tall, with young reddish and sticky branches. The leaves are narrow, linear to oblong (about 20–40 mm long and 2.5–7 mm wide) with a short stalk. The top of the leaf is smooth, while the underside has soft white hairs. Flowers appear at the ends of branchlets and can be solitary, or with two to five male flowers, or a single female flower surrounded by up to three male flowers. Each flower has five sepals joined at the base and five white or yellow petals. Male flowers have a slender stalk, small sepal lobes, longer petals, and many stamens crowded in a central column. Female flowers sit on a thicker stalk, with similar sepals and petals but different sizes. Flowering has been observed from May to September. The fruit is an elliptic capsule about 5–7 mm long and 6–7 mm wide.
Taxonomy
The species was first described in 1864 by Johannes Müller Argoviensis as Bertya gummifera var. psiloclada, from specimens collected near the Swan River. In 1873 George Bentham raised it to species status as Ricinocarpos psilocladus. The name psilocladus means “glabrous shoot,” referring to the pedicels that lack bracts at flowering time.
Habitat and conservation
Ricinocarpos psilocladus grows in heath and shrubland, mainly in near-coastal areas between Geraldton and Northampton, in the Avon Wheatbelt and Geraldton Sandplains bioregions of Western Australia. It is listed as not threatened.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 17:35 (CET).