Cryptandra myriantha

Cryptandra myriantha is a flowering plant in the family Rhamnaceae and is endemic to southern continental Australia. It is a slender, erect or straggling shrub with cylindrical leaves and more or less sessile clusters of creamy-white to pink flowers.

Description
Cryptandra myriantha is a slender, erect or straggling shrub that typically grows to a height of 10–60 cm and has branchlets lacking spines. The leaves are mostly cylindrical, mostly 2–5 mm long and 0.5–1 mm in diameter on a short petiole with egg-shaped stipules up to 1.7 mm long at the base. The upper surface of the leaves is glabrous and the lower surface is covered with minute pimples. The flowers are creamy-white to pink and arranged singly or in a raceme of up to 10 on a short pedicel with brown, egg-shaped bracts 1.0–2.2 mm long at the base. The floral tube is bell-shaped, 1.5–2.5 mm long and white, the sepals 1–2 mm long and softly-hairy, the petals 0.7–1 mm long. Flowering occurs from May to September.

Taxonomy and naming
Cryptandra myriantha was first formally described in 1904 by Ludwig Diels in Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie from specimens collected near Moora. The specific epithet (myriantha) means "countless-flowered".

Distribution
This cryptandra grows in sandy and gravelly soils in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Esperance Plains, Geraldton Sandplains, Jarrah Forest, Mallee and Swan Coastal Plain bioregions of south-west of Western Australia, and in the south-east of South Australia. In Victoria it is only known from a single collection in the Little Desert region in 1979.

Conservation status
Cryptandra myriantha is listed as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, but as "critically endangered" in Victoria under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.