Alice Springs Desert Park
Alice Springs Desert ParkFauna Flora Nature Theatre Nocturnal House
Known as the Native Cotton Bush (Gossypium australe) is an endemic woody shrub, that is related to cotton. It is found growing in Central Australia and in north Western Australia. It is sometimes referred to as the Australian Desert Rose, and not be mistaken for the Sturt’s Desert Rose (Gossypium sturtianum).
The leaves are grey-green and hairy, oval to elliptic, approximately 8 cm long and soft to the touch. The flowers are around 3–5 cm, a pale pink mauve, ‘rose’ colour, with a deeper shade at the centre. The fruit is hairy and spherical, containing a bristly seed.
The Native Cotton Bush has strong stems that were once used as skewers for storing dried bush tomatoes by the local aboriginal people.
The plant and flower is popular with a number of insects including ants, bees and the tiny Australiphthiria sp (bee fly).
- Scientific classification
- Kingdom: Plantae
- Phylum: Charophyta
- Class: Equisetopsida
- Subclass: Magnoliidae
- Superorder: Rosanae
- Order: Malvales
- Family: Malvaceae
- Genus: Gossypium
- Subgenus: Sturtia
- Section: Hibiscoidea
- Gossypium australe
- Section: Hibiscoidea
- Subgenus: Sturtia
ASDP FloraBatswing Coral Tree Blue Mallee Bush Banana Buttercup Pigweed Dead Finish Desert Grevillea Desert Oak Desert Raisin Field Lily Georges Indigo Golden Everlasting Honey Grevillea Kangaroo Grass Lamarchea sulcata Native Apricot Native Bluebell Native Cotton Bush Native Tomato Olearia ferresii Nicotiana megalosiphon subsp sessilifolia Parrot Pea Pink Everlasting Poached Egg Daisy Potato Vine Quandong Rattlepod Grevillea Red-bud Mallee Red Mulga Resurrection Fern Rough Halgania Sandover Lily Silkyheads Spearwood Bush Sturt’s Desert Pea Waddy-wood Walukara Weeping Spinifex White Spider Flower Wild Passionfruit Wildflower Display
Alice Springs Desert ParkFauna Flora Nature Theatre Nocturnal House