Maireana trichoptera
species of plant
Maireana trichoptera, commonly known as mallee bluebush, pink-seeded bluebush or downy bluebush, or spike bluebush, is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaranthaceae, native to all mainland states and territories of Australia except Queensland. It is an erect perennial shrub with white, woolly branches, fleshy semiterete leaves, white bisexual flowers arranged singly, and a hairy fruiting perianth with a thin, horizontal wing.
Description
Maireana trichoptera is an erect, perennial shrub that typically grows up to 50 cm (20 in) high, with woolly hairy branches. The leaves are fleshy, semiterete or narrowly club-shaped, 5–12 mm (0.20–0.47 in) long and covered with fine, soft hairs. The flowers are bisexual and arranged singly, sometimes crowded in spikes at the ends of branches. The fruiting perianth is about 10–12 mm (0.39–0.47 in) long and mostly covered with soft hairs on most of the upper surface, with a tube about 4 mm (0.16 in) high, constricted in the middle, the lower half expanded into a fleshy, hollow stalk enclosing the receptacle. The wing is thin, about 10 mm (0.39 in) in diameter and covered with soft hairs, and has a single slit.
Taxonomy
This species was first formally described in 1923 by John McConnell Black, who gave it the name Kochia excavata var. trichoptera in Transactions and proceedings of the Royal Society of South Australia. In 1975, Paul Graham Wilson transferred the species to the genus, Maireana as Maireana trichoptera in the journal Nuytsia.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Maireana trichoptera” as species of plant. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of plant. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q15593861. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1923 and 1975.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maireana trichoptera” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.