#boronia

Boronia crenulata

05-SEP-2025

Named in 1841 by John Lindley and published in Edwards's Botanical Register, that was published from 1815 to 1847. Lindley was editor from 1827, and in 1839 issued an Appendix to the First Twenty-Three Volumes of Edwards's Botanical Register, which included his A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony. That's another title that's shown up a lot when I'm researching WA endemics.

A small, 40cm shrub with roughly egg-shaped leaves - hence the specific epithet - that grows on the Darling Escarpment in gravelly and sandy soils. The genus was named after Fransesco Borone, an 18th century Italian botanist.

The flowers may also be mauve.

A recent discovery in Boronia biology is how those species with closed flowers manage to get pollinated. It turns out there are tiny day-flying moths in the Heliozelid family that lay eggs inside the flower, and collect pollen in a unique structure on the tip of their abdomen. Their caterpillars will eat some of the seeds when they hatch. Heliozelids are *wildly* more diverse than we previously knew, and whether they're living inside Boronia flowers, or more usually as leafminers inside Eucalyptus leaves, appear to be extremely host-specific. There are probably thousands of species waiting to be described here in Australia.

Sunday, 27th February, 2022 🌿

Source: Bowerbird Flowers | Durham, NC

It’s boronia season, y’all! Prepare for lots of boronia posts.

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