Homoranthus tropicus is a flowering plant in the family Myrtaceae and is endemic to tropical north Queensland. It is a shrub with curved, club-shaped leaves and white flowers in a corymb-like arrangement on the ends of branchlets.
Homoranthus tropicus is a shrub to high. The leaves are arranged opposite, club-shaped, curved, shortly pointed and tapering at the base to a short petiole long, wide and marked with tiny dots. The white flowers are on a pedicel long, the small bracts long, keeled and ending in a short point. The calyx tube, distinctly angled and up to long, lobes long. The petals are broadly egg-shaped to almost round, margins smooth, about long and the style up to long. Flowering occurs sporadically throughout the year, primarily February to July and the fruit is a single seed retained in the calyx.[1] [2]
Homoranthus tropicus was first formally described in 1981 by Norman Byrnes from a specimen he collected north of Laura in 1975 and the description was published in Austrolbaileya.[1] [3] The specific epithet (tropicus) means "tropical".[4]
This species grows in northern Queensland in heath or shrubby woodland on shallow rocky soils over sandstone.[2]
It has a restricted distribution and considered rare by Briggs and Leigh (1996) given a ROTAP conservation code of 2R.[2]