About Stylidium repens R.Br.
Stylidium repens, commonly known as the matted triggerplant, is a dicotyledonous plant in the genus Stylidium of the family Stylidiaceae. S. repens is endemic to Australia, occurring primarily in southwest Western Australia. This species is a creeping or scrambling triggerplant that can spread across large areas, forming a tangled mat of stems and aerial roots. Older stems are grey, while younger stems are red and bear terminal rosettes of small leaves, which range from five millimeters to one centimeter in length. When rain arrives, new roots and one to three flowers emerge from these terminal rosettes. This is the only known triggerplant species that regularly flowers twice a year, in both autumn and late spring. While pollination is typically very specialized in the Stylidium genus, S. repens is pollinated by a variety of different insects. S. repens grows primarily in sand within jarrah and wandoo forests, and also in scrubby heath. It has a wide distribution, ranging from north of Geraldton to east of Esperance, south to the coast and inland to Dangin. Stylidium repens var. diplectroglossum (Erickson & Willis) was once thought to be a distinct variety of S. repens, distinguished by its narrower leaves and free calyx lobes. This variety has since been renamed S. diplectroglossum, recognizing it as a separate species. In her 1958 book Triggerplants, Rica Erickson proposed that what was known as S. radicans (Sond.) is actually a synonym for S. repens, due to morphological similarities between the two. Allen Lowrie and his research team confirmed this earlier hypothesis during their taxonomic revision of creeping triggerplants.
