Thysanotus speckii is a species of flowering plant in the Asparagaceae family, and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a perennial herb with a small rootstock, tuberous roots, a few linear leaves and umbels of four to six purple flowers with linear to narrowly lance-shaped sepals, oblong, fringed petals and six stamens of differing lengths.
Description Thysanotus speckii is a perennial herb with a small rootstock and tuberous roots, the tubers sessile and long. It has a few more or less linear, flat leaves, long, and that sometimes wither before flowering. The flowers are borne in loose panicles about long with umbels of up to four to six flowers, each on a pedicel long. The perianth segments are long, the sepals curved, linear to narrowly lance-shaped, about wide, and the petals oblong, wide, with a fringe long. There are six stamens, the three outer anthers long and the inner anthers long. The style is curved long. Flowering occurs from July to September, and the seeds are elliptical, about long and in diameter, with a straw-coloured aril.
Taxonomy Thysanotus speckii was first formally described in 1972 by Norman Henry Brittan in the Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia from specimens collected by Nathaniel Henry Speck, north-west of Belele Station and about west-north-west of Meekatharra in 1957. The specific epithet (speckii) honours the collector of the type specimens.
Distribution and habitat This species of Thysanotus grows in shrubland with scattered mulga (Acacia aneura) on red sand, granite outcrops and red sandy loam between Exmouth and Geraldton, including some off-shore islands, and south-east towards Meekatharra and the Bullfinch area, in the Avon Wheatbelt, Carnarvon, Coolgardie, Gascoyne, Geraldton Sandplains, Murchison and Yalgoo bioregions of south-western Western Australia.
Conservation status Thysanotus speckii is listed as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.
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