Beyeria lateralis (Euphorbiaceae), a previously overlooked new species from Western Australia’s Mallee region

Abstract

Members of the genus Beyeria Miq. (Euphorbiaceae: Ricinocarpeae: Ricinocarpinae) are shrubs with mostly small, greenish and inconspicuous, unisexual flowers. In many species all parts of the plants, including the flowers, are thickly coated in resin. The combination of being easily overlooked in the field and having flowers that are difficult to interpret in the dried condition may partly explain why almost half of the currently recognised Western Australian taxa were only described in a recent revision of the genus (Halford & Henderson 2008). Other contributory factors are likely to be an apparently high level of short-range endemism in the genus and the fact that Western Australia has never had a local taxonomist specialising in Euphorbiaceae. The only additions to the western Beyeria in the twentieth century were made by the distinguished English botanist, Herbert Airy Shaw (1971).