Botanical atlas

Purple-head Phymatocarpus

Phymatocarpus porphyrocephalus

Phymatocarpus porphyrocephalus is one of the quieter corners of the myrtle family, a small heathland shrub tucked into the sandplains of southwest Western Australia among its showier cousins, the featherflowers and starflowers. It has no documented history in Aboriginal bush medicine or in later settler herbalism, and it never made the leap into the tea tins and tincture bottles that carried so many of its Myrtaceae relatives into wide use. Its real story is a botanist's story, one of a small, localized genus that took its own quiet path through the ancient sands, noticed mostly by the people who go looking for wildflowers that most gardeners have never heard of.

Safety.

There's no history of this plant being eaten or used medicinally and no safety data on it, so it shouldn't be taken internally. It's an uncommon Western Australian wildflower best left undisturbed in the wild.