Alice Springs Flora •
Alice Springs FloraAlice Springs Flora Index Acacia ligulata Annual Yellowtop Apple Bush Bougainvillea Burdekin Plum Carob Tree (Ceratonia siliqa) Cattle Bush Desert Cotton (Aerva javanica) Desert Oak Eremophila Wildberry Feijoa sellowiana Flannel Cudweed Fork-leaf Corkwood Ghost Gum Golden Everlasting Kurrajong Lemon-flowered Gum MacDonnell’s Desert Fuchsia Native Bluebell Native Tomato Needlewood Olive Tree Perennial Yellow Top Rat’s Tail River Red Gum Inland River Red Gum Rosy Dock Round-leaved Mallee Scurvy Grass Silky Eremophila Stemodia viscosa Striped Mintbush Sturt’s Desert Pea Sturt’s Desert Rose Tangled Leschenaultia Tar Vine Weeping Bottlebrush White Cedar Yellow Billybutton Yellow-keeled Swainsona Yellow Oleander
The beautiful MacDonnell’s Desert Fuchsia (Eremophila macdonnellii), also known as MacDonnell’s Fuchsia, is from the family Scrophulariaceae, and is endemic to Australia. The plant was formally described by botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in 1859, the plant was named after Sir Richard Graves Macdonnell, who was Governor of South Australia (1855-1862).
It is widespread in Central Australia, often found growing on sand dunes and sand plains, through the southern parts of Northern Territory, to northern South Australia and far south-western Queensland.
A shrub with many branchlets, that are often covered in fine hairs, from sparse to dense. The flowers are deep violet to purple in colour. The flower tube, flares into an notched upper lip and three spreading lower lobes.
A variable species, that include a number of forms in cultivation, with both prostrate forms and upright forms reaching one or more metres in height. The prostrate forms have a spread of 1 to 2 metres, although they can have a spread of up to 5 metres.
Under cultivation, as seen growing in the garden at the Women’s Museum of Australia here in Alice Springs, they can grow quite large. The pictured shrubs were just over 1.5 metres high.
- Scientific classification
- Kingdom: Plantae
- Phylum: Charophyta
- Class: Equisetopsida
- Subclass: Magnoliidae
- Superorder: Asteranae
- Order: Lamiales
- Family: Scrophulariaceae
- Genus: Eremophila
- Species: Eremophila macdonnellii
Footnote & References
- Alice Springs Field Naturalists Club, Facebook group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1379683398719247
- Wildflowers & Plants of Inland Australia, author Anne Urban, ISBN 0-646-41688-X, p182, https://ausemade.com.au/publications/
- Eremophila macdonnellii F.Muell., Atlas of Living Australia, https://bie.ala.org.au/species/https://id.biodiversity.org.au/node/apni/2889584
Alice Springs FloraAlice Springs Flora Index Acacia ligulata Annual Yellowtop Apple Bush Bougainvillea Burdekin Plum Carob Tree (Ceratonia siliqa) Cattle Bush Desert Cotton (Aerva javanica) Desert Oak Eremophila Wildberry Feijoa sellowiana Flannel Cudweed Fork-leaf Corkwood Ghost Gum Golden Everlasting Kurrajong Lemon-flowered Gum MacDonnell’s Desert Fuchsia Native Bluebell Native Tomato Needlewood Olive Tree Perennial Yellow Top Rat’s Tail River Red Gum Inland River Red Gum Rosy Dock Round-leaved Mallee Scurvy Grass Silky Eremophila Stemodia viscosa Striped Mintbush Sturt’s Desert Pea Sturt’s Desert Rose Tangled Leschenaultia Tar Vine Weeping Bottlebrush White Cedar Yellow Billybutton Yellow-keeled Swainsona Yellow Oleander
Alice Springs FaunaAlice Springs Native Bees Alice Springs Beetles Alice Springs Birds Alice Springs Gastropods (Gastropoda) Alice Springs Insects Alice Springs Marsupials Alice Springs Reptiles Alice Springs Spiders