Androcalva pearnii

Androcalva pearnii is a species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae and is endemic to the Blackdown Tableland National Park in eastern Queensland. It is shrub that forms suckers and has hairy new growth, wavy, oblong to elliptic leaves with rounded lobes on the edges, and groups of 3 to 8 white and cream-coloured to pale green flowers.

Description
Androcalva pearnii is a suckering shrub that typically grows to 0.3–1 m high and wide, its new growth covered with fine, star-shaped hairs. The leaves are oblong to elliptic, 10–50 mm long and 6–16 mm wide on a petiole 3–10 mm long with narrowly triangular stipules 1–6 mm long at the base. The edges of the leaves are wavy with 5 to 7 pairs of rounded lobes 1–10 mm long and both surfaces of the leaves are covered with velvety hairs. The flowers are arranged in groups of 3 to 8 on a peduncle 1 mm long, each flower on a pedicel 0.5–0.8 mm long, with bracts 1–5 mm long at the base. The flowers are white and cream-coloured to pale green and 4–5 mm in diameter with 5 petal-like sepals, the lobes 1.4–1.5 mm long and wide. The petals are white, 1.3–1.5 mm long, and there are 3 staminodes between each pair of stamens. Flowering occurs from September to December and in March.

Taxonomy
This species was first formally described in 2005 by Gordon Guymer who gave it the name Commersonia pearnii in the journal Austrobaileya from specimens collected by Paul Irwin Forster near Charlevue Lookout in the Blackdown Tableland National Park in 2005. In 2011, Carolyn Wilkins and Barbara Whitlock transferred the species to Androcalva as A. pearnii in Australian Systematic Botany. The specific epithet (pearnii) honours Professor John Pearn.

Distribution and habitat
Androcalva pearnii grows in open forest on the Blackdown Tableland in eastern Queensland.