• Home
• Where, When & How?
• Bendigo's Fauna
• Bendigo's Flora
• Fauna Study Group
• Bird Observers Group
• Useful Links

Whipstick Westringia

The nationally endangered Whipstick Westringia (Westringia crassifolia) is an erect spindly shrub to 2 m high with slender, longitudinally ribbed branchlets, sparsely covered with soft hairs. The dark green leaves are in whorls of three with entire leaf margins; leaf blades are 5 - 15 mm long, 1.5 - 2.5 mm wide, sparsely to moderately hairy and rather thick. The flower colour ranges through pink to blue or lavender. They are borne freely towards the ends of the branches between August and September. The lavender-blue colour shades into white in the throat of the flower where it is dotted with orange yellow spots.

Whipstick Westringia is endemic in Victoria, confined to the Box Ironbark forests of the Greater Bendigo National Park and Little Desert mallee communities. The species is currently under threat from herbivore browsing, altered hydrology regimes, habitat fragmentation and lack of regeneration. With only 640 plants remaining in the wild, this species is currently at serious risk of disappearing if causal factors continue to operate.