Commersonia rugosa
Commersonia rugosa is a species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae and endemic to New South Wales. It is an open, straggly shrub with linear to narrowly egg-shaped leaves with irregular teeth or lobes on the edges, and white flowers in clusters of 3 to 15.

Description
Commersonia rugosa is an open, straggly shrub that typically grows to  high and wide, its new growth covered with brownish, star-shaped hairs. The leaves are linear to narrowly egg-shaped,  long and  wide on a petiole  long with stipules  long at the base. The edges of the leaves are irregularly toothed or lobed and rolled under, the upper surface wrinkled with prominent impressed veins, and the lower surface densely covered with velvety hairs. The flowers are arranged in crowded clusters of 3 to 15 on a peduncle  long, each flower on a pedicel up to  long with a narrow bract  long at the base. The flowers are about  wide with five white, petal-like sepals that have fine, white star-shaped hairs on the back, and petals with a narrow, hairy ligule. Flowering occurs from August to November and the fruit is a hairy, bristly capsule  in diameter.

Taxonomy
This species was first formally described in 1846 by Joachim Steetz who gave it the name Rulingia rugosa in Lehmann's Plantae Preissianae. In 1882, Ferdinand von Mueller transferred the species to Commersonia as C. rugosa in his Systematic Census of Australian Plants.

The specific epithet (rugosa) means "wrinkled".

Distribution and habitat
Commersonia rugosa mainly grows near creeks in forest or woodland, sometimes on hillsides or the summit of ranges and occurs south of the Royal National Park in New South Wales, to Orbost in Victoria, where it was first recorded in 2020 following bushfires.

References

rugosa
Flora of New South Wales
Flora of Victoria (state)
Plants described in 1846
Taxa named by Joachim Steetz