Echium pininana × Echium wildpretii
Monocarpic shrub to c. 5 m high; stem erect, green, unbranched, with white bristly hairs. Leaves densely hairy with white appressed hairs, apex acuminate, margins entire; rosette leaves oblong to elliptic, to 55 cm long, 14 cm wide; cauline leaves narrow-elliptic to broadly-lanceolate, long-attenuate at base. Inflorescence conical, cymes 1–3-fid; bracts longer than sepals. Sepals ovate to lanceolate, 4–6 mm long, obtuse, accrescent in fruit, ciliate at margin, pubescent; corolla 12–15 mm long, sparsely pubescent, mauve or lavender, lobes truncate, broad-ovate or deltoid, c. 2 mm long, shorter than tube; stamens inserted in throat, long-exserted. Mericarps 2–3 mm long, prominently lobed and tuberculate towards base, brown. Flowers spring–summer.
Known from a single site at Olinda in the Dandenong Ranges. These plants were originally determined as Echium pininana but this species has a blue corolla and so these plants are probably the hybrid, Echium pininana × Echium wildpretii, which has lilac flowers. Both parent species native to the Canary Islands.
Spinning