Rare Goodenia also uncommonly purple

A rare plant thriving in garden setting? Not that unusual really but this is a great example. As is the Wollemi Pine, flourishing all over world except the tropics, albeit susceptible to over and under watering (or poor drainage). Similarly the Dawn Redwood and I guess we could include the ginkgo.

My feature plant today is much smaller, but a cheery little plant nevertheless. It's the Pinnate Goodenia, Goodenia macmillanii, a species only known from a few locations in eastern Victoria. It doesn't even creep up into New South Wales, so it's a true Victorian endemic.

There are some 200 species of Goodenia, with most of them in Western Australia, and only a couple found outside Australia (northward to the Philippines). 

According to VicFlora, the Pinnate Goodenia grows on 'rocky, forested or scrubby slopes in rain-shadowed valleys of the Macalister, Snowy and Deddick Rivers'. 

The first specimen of this species collected for science was by Angus MacMillan, a settler/explorer of Gippsland. He collected it from near the Macalister River, a river he first named in English. The species was given its botanical name, honoring MacMillan, by my predecessor Ferdinand von Mueller, in 1859.

Most goodenias have yellow flowers. In fact all species from the eastern side of Australia are yellow-flowered except for this one, and sometimes Goodenia grandiflora. 

Goodenia grandiflora, though, doesn't have the  lobes at the base of each leaf (making the leaves of the Pinnate Goodenia pinnate) so is easily distinguished from Goodenia macmillannii even when it has mauve flowers.

As you see here, alongside the Eucalypt Walk in the Australian Garden at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (photographed in mid-December) Pinnate Goodenia is a wonderful ground cover. Although a perennial it may get shabby after a few years, but now, decked in purple, it looks great.

It clearly spreads readily, by suckering, but is apparently not invasive. Unlike the Rice Flower I featured last week, though, it will need a little extra water.

I suspect seed and cuttings of this species (although perhaps not this specimen) were collected by our Plant Rescue and Care Unit to help protect species impacted by the devastating bushfires of 2019-20. So a plant to enjoy and to protect.