Persoonia mollis, commonly known as soft geebung,
Description
Persoonia mollis is an erect to prostrate shrub that typically grows to a height of and has smooth bark and young branchlets that are covered with greyish to rust-coloured hairs. The leaves are linear, oblong to lance-shaped or spatula-shaped, long, wide and much paler on the lower surface. The flowers are arranged in groups of up to thirty along a rachis up to long that grows into a leafy shoot after flowering, each flower on a pedicel about long, usually with a leaf at the base. The
are yellow, long and hairy on the outside. Flowering mostly occurs from late December to May and the fruit is a green
drupe about long and wide.
Taxonomy
Persoonia mollis was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown in
Transactions of the Linnean Society of London.
In 1991, Siegfried Krauss and Lawrie Johnson described nine subspecies of P. mollis in the journal Telopea, and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census:
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Persoonia mollis subsp. budawangensis S.Krauss & L.A.S.Johnson
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Persoonia mollis subsp. caleyi (R.Br.) S.Krauss & L.A.S.Johnson
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Persoonia mollis subsp. ledifolia (A.Cunn. ex Meisn.) S.Krauss & L.A.S.Johnson
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Persoonia mollis subsp. leptophylla S.Krauss & L.A.S.Johnson
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Persoonia mollis subsp. livens S.Krauss & L.A.S.Johnson
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Persoonia mollis subsp. maxima S.Krauss & L.A.S.Johnson
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Persoonia mollis R.Br. subsp. mollis
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Persoonia mollis subsp. nectens S.Krauss & L.A.S.Johnson
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Persoonia mollis subsp. revoluta S.Krauss & L.A.S.Johnson
Distribution and habitat
Soft geebung grows from heath to forest, usually on sandstone, from the Blue Mountains and
Hawkesbury River south to the Clyde River.
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Subspecies budawangensis grows from woodland to forest and is endemic to the Budawang Range;
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Subspecies caleyi grows in forest between Jervis Bay and Durras Lake on the South Coast;
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Subspecies ledifolia occurs between Kangaloon, the Shoalhaven River, Jamberoo and Wingello where it grows from heath to forest on Sydney sandstone;
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Subspecies leptophylla is found between the Shoalhaven River, Budawang Range, Nerriga and Nowra and on the Beecroft Peninsula where it grows in heath and forest on Nowra Sandstone and Conjola sandstones;
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Subspecies livens is found between Penrose, Goulburn and Braidwood, growing in woodland on metasedimentary rock and conglomerate;
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Subspecies maxima grows in forest on Hawkesbury sandstone in the Cowan-Hornsby area;
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Subspecies mollis is found in forest on sandstone in the Blue Mountains;
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Subspecies nectens occurs between Oakdale, Hill Top and the Illawarra Escarpment where it grows in forest;
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Subspecies revoluta grows in forest on Hawkesbury sandstone between Nattai Gorge, Bullio, Berrima and Canyonleigh.
