Lobelia dentata is a herb

Herbaceous plant

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...

 found in eastern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. The habitat is eucalyptus

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...

 woodland and forest, often on sandy soils. An uncommon species, but it may be locally abundant after bushfires.

Lobelia dentata grows as a slender, hairless plant, growing to 40 cm (16 in) high. The flowers form on a raceme

Raceme

A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...

 and appear from March to November. The dark blue or purple flowers are small, but create a spectacular sight with their abundance and beauty. The specific epithet dentata refers to the "toothed leaves". The leaves are 1 to 4 cm long, 3 to 10 mm wide. The fruiting capsule is 4 to 7 mm long, and 4 mm in diameter.

The original specimen was collected by Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...

 and Daniel Solander

Daniel Solander

Daniel Carlsson Solander or Daniel Charles Solander was a Swedish naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. Solander was the first university educated scientist to set foot on Australian soil.-Biography:...

 at Botany Bay

Botany Bay

Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...

 in 1770, when part of the first voyage of Captain James Cook

First voyage of James Cook

The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771...

.

This plant first appeared in scientific literature in 1800, in the Icones et Descriptiones Plantarum, authored by the Spanish botanist Antonio José Cavanilles

Antonio José Cavanilles

Antonio José Cavanilles was a leading Spanish taxonomic botanist of the 18th century. He named many plants, particularly from Oceania, his name is abbreviated as Cav...

.

The species ranges along coastal districts of New South Wales from Murwillumbah to Batemans Bay. It also occurs in Victoria. The habitat is eucalypt forest.