Macrostylis cauliflora I.Williams

Shrubs up to 25 years old, 30 cm tall, spreading 50 cm, dense, arising from a fairly stout root, branching at ground level. Branches short, numerous, dichotomous, glabrous with a rough bark. Branchlets very numerous, slender, fairly erect, not very straight, well clothed with leaves, reddish coloured, sparsely puberulous. Leaves 2-2.5 mm long, 1.3-1.5 mm broad, elliptic, obtuse without any apical callus or hyaline margins, almost eciliate, glabrous, thick, fleshy, sub-glaucous, gland-dotted on the broad midrib and sometimes minutely so on the margins, sessile, erect, scattered. Inflorescence appears to be borne on the older wood at the base of the leafy branchlets, normally at the forking of two branchlets, up to 6-flowered, with flowers 7 mm diam., white, sessile. Bract frequently delapsing in the early stages of flowering, 1.5 mm long, 1 mm broad, sub-orbicular, hyaline margin narrow, sparsely ciliolate, thick, glabrous, ad-pressed, midrib gland-dotted. Bracteoles two, 1-1.3 mm long, 1 mm broad, orbicular, obtuse, glabrous, ciliolate, hyaline margins broad and membranous, concave. Calyx lobes five, 1.5 mm long, 1.5 mm broad, orbicular, obtuse, glabrous, with a thick green midrib and broad membranous ciliolate margins. Petals five, 2.8 mm overall; limb about 1 mm diam., obtuse, glabrous, 5-6 gland-dots on the underside; claw 1.7 mm long, 0.7 mm broad, narrowing to the base, villous mostly down the midrib, eciliate. Staminodes five, 0.15 mm long, globose, vestigial. Filaments five, 3.5 mm long, filiform, glabrous. Anthers five, before anthesis 0.6 mm long, yellow with a spherical apical gland 0.2 mm diam. Pollen 45µ long, 21µ diam., oblong. Disc 5-lobed, more or less closes over the ovary, dark green, exudes nectar. Stigma 0.3 mm diam., capitellate, depressed globose. Style becoming 3.6 mm long, erect, stout, glabrous. Ovary 3-carpellate, 0.6 mm long, 0.7 mm diam.; carpels broad, retuse, red tipped. Fruit 3-carpellate of which one, two or three ripen, glabrous, gland-dotted, reddened, up to 1.5 mm long including the horn 4 mm long, obtuse at the apex. Seed 5 mm long, 2 mm broad, black, not shining.