Eremophila spinescens, the spiny poverty bush, is a low, spreading, spiny shrub from arid Western Australia, grown for its lilac to dark purple flowers. Its key needs are full sun and very well-drained soil, and it tolerates drought well.
Family
Scrophulariaceae (Scrophulari family)
Grows as
Shrub
Light
Full sun
Water
Water sparingly; established plants rarely need watering even in long dry spells.
Soil
Well-drained sand, loam or clay; avoid waterlogging.
Temperature
Frost tolerant when mature; protect young plants from hard frost.
How easy
Easy
Native range
Western Australia
Climate
desert or dry shrubland
About
Eremophila spinescens is a flowering plant in the figwort family, Scrophulariaceae and is endemic to Western Australia. It is a low, spreading, rigid, spiny shrub with small leaves and lilac to dark purple flowers.
How to grow it
Caution needs to be exercised when deciding where to grow this small shrub as its branches become spiny as they age. It is nevertheless an attractive plant with small, dark-green leaves and lilac-coloured flowers. It can be propagated from cuttings and grown in a well-drained soil in full sun. It is very drought tolerant, rarely needing watering during a long dry spell, although it may lose some leaves and it is generally frost tolerant when mature.
Where it grows
Spiny poverty bush grows in sand, clay or loam soils between Wiluna and Carnegie Station in the Gascoyne, Little Sandy Desert and Murchison biogeographic regions.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Eremophila spinescens by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.