Cryptandra nutans

{{Short description|Species of flowering plant}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2022}}

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|genus = Cryptandra

|species = nutans

|authority = Steud.{{cite web |title=Cryptandra nutans |url=https://biodiversity.org.au/nsl/services/apc-format/display/87661|publisher=Australian Plant Census |access-date=21 January 2023}}

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Cryptandra nutans is a species of flowering plant in the family Rhamnaceae and is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It is a shrub that typically grows to a height of {{cvt|10–60|cm}} and has many stems at ground level. Its leaves are up to {{cvt|4|mm}} long, and the flowers are white, pink or cream-coloured and crowded in spikes on the ends of branches. The sepals are joined at the base to form a broadly bell-shaped tube, less than {{cvt|2|mm}} long with spreading lobes.{{cite book |last1=Bentham |first1=George |title=Flora Australiensis |volume=1 |date=1863 |publisher=Lovell Reeve & Co. |location=London |page=441 |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/6721561#page/499/mode/1up |access-date=29 January 2023}} Flowering occurs in August and September.{{FloraBase|id=4804|name=Cryptandra nutans}} It was first formally described in 1845 by Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel in Lehmann's Plantae Preissianae from specimens collected in 1840.{{cite web |title=Cryptandra nutans |url=https://biodiversity.org.au/nsl/services/rest/instance/apni/805121 |publisher=Australian Plant Name Index |access-date=21 January 2023}}{{cite book |last1=von Steudel |first1=Ernst G. |editor-last1=Lehmann |editor-first1=Johann G.C. |editor-last2=Preiss |editor-first2=Ludwig |title=Plantae preissianae sive enumeratio plantarum quas in australasia occidentali et meridionali-occidentali |date=1845 |publisher=Sumptibus Meissneri |location=Hamburg |page=186 |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/498359#page/191/mode/1up |access-date=21 January 2023}} The specific epithet (nutans) means "nodding".{{cite book |last1=Sharr |first1=Francis Aubi |last2=George |first2=Alex |title=Western Australian Plant Names and Their Meanings |date=2019 |publisher=Four Gables Press |location=Kardinya, WA |isbn=9780958034180 |page=262 |edition=3rd}}

This cryptandra grows in gravelly sand or clayey soils over laterite in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Esperance Plains, Geraldton Sandplains, Jarrah Forest, Mallee and Swan Coastal Plain bioregions of south-western Western Australia.