Scaevola aemula.
The Fairy or Common fan flower, in Family Goodeniaceae is an Australian native.
They mostly grow as a prostrate ground cover up to 40 cm high and 1.5 m wide but can be an upright plant up to 60 cm high.
The round, unribbed stems have coarse yellowish or brownish hairs that lie flat against the surface.
Alternately arranged leaves can be oblong, ovate, obovate or wedge-shaped.
They can be up to 9 cm long and 3 cm wide with a blunt or pointed tip.
The blade tapers towards the base and there is sometimes a short petiole.
The edge can be smooth or coarsely toothed to various degrees.
Both surfaces have coarse hairs that lie along the surface.
Inflorescences are terminal spikes up to 24 cm long.
They may be sessile or on a stalk with a leaf-like bract at the base.
The hairy, lance-shaped bracteoles are longer than the bracts being up to 8 mm long.
The stalk above the bracteole is the pedicel and that below is the peduncle.
The hairy sepals are fused at the base with 5 lobes under 1 mm long.
The corolla is up to 2.5 cm long and 3 cm across.
The bases of the petals are fused into a tube that is deeply split on one side.
All 5 petal lobes are on the lower lip.
The lobes are up to 12 mm long with wings up to 1.5 mm wide.
There are no auricles under the wings.
The outer surface of the corolla has dense simple hairs lying along the surface and there are simple hairs in the throat.
Including cultivars flowers can be deep or pale blue, mauve, purple, white or pink.
The throat is yellow and white.
The 5 stamens are free.
The 2.5 mm long hairy inferior ovary has 2 locules with 1 or 2 ovules.
The style is up to around 1 cm long and has a few hairs under the single stigma.
The indusium below the stigma is up to 1.5 mm long and around 2 mm wide.
There are long white bristles on the rim and purplish ones at the base.
The fruit are dry drupes less than 5 mm long that have short hairs.
There are many cultivars in shades of blue, white, pink and purple.
These are almost all prostrate plants 10 to 30 cm high forming clumps up to 1.5 m wide.
Cultivars include ‘Blue Fan’ and ‘Purple Fanfare’ and the Bombay series with dark blue, white and lavender flowers.
J.F.
