Botany Photo of the Day will have brief written entries on weekends, holidays and my vacations from April through September. – Daniel

Thank you to Katy S. aka Mellifera K@Flickr of Australia for sharing another one of her photographs (original | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Always happy to feature the occasional Australian native plant!

Native to Queensland and northeast New South Wales, tall phebalIum is a shrub of Australian rainforests and adjacent habitats. If you are familiar with Leionema, you likely could have predicted the range; all twenty or so species are endemic to eastern Australia. According to the New South Wales Flora Online, Leionema elatius subsp. beckleri has a ROTAP (Rare or Threatened Australian Plants) code of 2EC-, meaning it is a) of restricted distribution, with a range extending over less than 100km; b) endangered (at serious risk in the next one or two decades); and c) known to occur within a protected reserve (though the population size is unknown).