Podotheca angustifolia, commonly known as Sticky Longheads, is a species of herb native to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Description

An annual herb with yellow flowers, P. angustifolia grows in a range of habits, from trailing along the ground to erect; when erect if can reach up to 30 centimetres in height, but is usually no more than 20 centimetres. It has a swollen, almost succulent

Succulent plant

Succulent plants, also known as succulents or fat plants, are water-retaining plants adapted to arid climates or soil conditions. Succulent plants store water in their leaves, stems, and also in roots...

 stem, and a slender woody taproot

Taproot

A taproot is an enlarged, somewhat straight to tapering plant root that grows vertically downward. It forms a center from which other roots sprout laterally.Plants with taproots are difficult to transplant...

. It is sticky due to secretions from its glandular hairs.

Taxonomy

This species was first published by Jacques Labillardière

Jacques Labillardière

Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardière was a French naturalist noted for his descriptions of the flora of Australia. Labillardière was a member of a voyage in search of the La Pérouse expedition...

 in his 1806 Novae Hollandiae plantarum specimen

Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen

Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen is a two volume work describing the flora of Australia. The author was the French botanist Jacques Labillardière, who visited the region in 1792 with the d'Entrecasteaux expedition...

, under the name Podosperma angustifolia. In 1826, Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini transferred it into Phaenopoda, but this was overturned six years later by Christian Friedrich Lessing

Christian Friedrich Lessing

Christian Friedrich Lessing was a German botanist who was a native of Groß Wartenberg, Niederschlesien. He was a brother to painter Carl Friedrich Lessing , and a grandnephew of poet Gotthold Ephraim Lessing ....

, who placed it in Podotheca

Podotheca

Podotheca is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. All species are endemic to Western Australia, except for Podotheca angustifolia which occurs across the south of Australia.Species include:...

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Distribution and habitat

It occurs in southern parts of Australia. It has been recorded from Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

but is now presumed extinct there.