Prostanthera teretifolia facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Turpentine bush |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Prostanthera
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| Species: |
teretifolia
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| Occurrence data from AVH | |
The Turpentine Bush (also known as Prostanthera teretifolia) is a special kind of flowering plant. It belongs to the Lamiaceae family, which includes mint plants! This bush is only found in a small part of New South Wales, Australia. It's a bushy plant that smells nice and has leaves that are shaped like tubes. Its flowers are a beautiful bluish-purple color.
What Does Turpentine Bush Look Like?
The Turpentine Bush is a plant that grows upright or spreads out. It's an aromatic shrub, which means it's a bushy plant that smells good! It usually grows to be about 0.3 to 1 meter (about 1 to 3 feet) tall. Its branches are covered in tiny hairs and have special parts called glands.
The leaves of this bush are a greyish-green color. They are mostly shaped like small cylinders or tubes. Each leaf is about 5 to 16 millimeters long (that's less than an inch!) and very thin, about 0.5 to 0.9 millimeters wide. Sometimes, the leaves might have two or three small bumps or "lobes." Each leaf sits on a short stalk called a petiole, which is about 0.6 to 1.8 millimeters long.
The flowers grow in groups at the ends of the leafy branches. Each flower has parts called sepals, which are like small green leaves that protect the flower bud. These sepals are about 4 millimeters long and form a tube about 2 to 2.5 millimeters wide. They have two small parts at the top. The actual flower petals are bluish-purple and are about 8 to 9 millimeters long. They form a tube about 4.5 to 5 millimeters long. You can usually see these pretty flowers from August to December.
How Was Turpentine Bush Named?
The Turpentine Bush was first officially described in 1908. Two scientists, Joseph Maiden and Ernst Betche, gave it its scientific name, Prostanthera teretifolia. They wrote about it in a scientific paper called the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. This is how new plant species get their official names!
Where Does Turpentine Bush Grow?
The Turpentine Bush is quite particular about where it lives. It grows in open, sunny places, often among large rock formations called granite outcrops. You can find it near a town called Torrington in the Northern Tablelands region of New South Wales, Australia. It's a special plant because it only grows in this specific area!
