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Philotheca verrucosa

Philotheca verrucosa
Photo: Melburnian, CC BY 3.0

Philotheca verrucosa, the fairy wax-flower, is a small Australian shrub from the citrus family with white star-like flowers in late winter and spring. It is frost hardy and fairly drought tolerant, and grows best in well-drained soil in full sun.

Family
Rutaceae (Citrus family)
Grows as
Shrub
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water regularly while establishing, then allow the soil to dry out between waterings.
Soil
Well-drained, gritty or sandy soil; dislikes waterlogging.
Temperature
Frost hardy; tolerates cold to about -5 °C, protect young plants from hard frost.
How easy
Moderate

About

Philotheca verrucosa, commonly known as fairy wax-flower or Bendigo wax-flower, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rutaceae and is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It is a small shrub with prominently glandular-warty branchlets, heart-shaped or egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, and white flowers usually arranged singly in leaf axils.

How to grow it

This philotheca can be grown from tip cuttings and is frost hardy and reasonably drought-tolerant. Some forms have double or multiple whorls of petals.

Philotheca 'Flower Girl' is a hybrid cultivar, thought to be a cross between this species and Philotheca myoporoides. It produces a profusion of light pink to white flowers during winter and spring and grows to between 1 and 2 metres high.

Where it grows

Philotheca verrucosa grows on rocky hills in forest and woodland, sometimes in sandy heathland and occurs in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. It is found in the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia, in the Grampians, Bendigo district and Gippsland in Victoria and in eastern Tasmania.

Other Philotheca plants

Philotheca pungens · Philotheca trachyphylla · Philotheca acrolopha · Narrow Leaf Wax Flower · Philotheca apiculata · Philotheca basistyla · Philotheca brevifolia · Philotheca brucei · Philotheca buxifolia · Philotheca ciliata · Philotheca citrina · Philotheca coateana

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Philotheca verrucosa 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.

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