Sprengelia sprengelioides is a species of flowering plant of the family Ericaceae, and is endemic to near-coastal areas of eastern Australia. It is an erect shrub with egg-shaped leaves, and white flowers arranged singly in leaf axils.
Sprengelia sprengelioides is an erect, glabrous shrub that typically grows to a height of and has wiry stems. The leaves are egg-shaped, long and wide with a small point on the end and minute teeth on the edges. The flowers are arranged singly in leaf axils, with egg-shaped bracts long at the base. The sepals are broad, green, egg-shaped, and long. The petals white, joined at the base to form a tube long with lobes long. Flowering occurs from June to September and the fruit is a capsule about in diameter.[1] [2] [3]
This species was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown who gave it the name Ponceletia sprengelioides in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen.[4] [5] In 1917, George Claridge Druce changed the name to Sprengelia sprengelioides in the supplement to The Botanical Exchange Club and Society of the British Isles Report for 1916.[6] The specific epithet (sprengelioides) means "Sprengelia-like". (This species was originally in the genus Ponceletia.)
Sprengelia sprengelioides grows swampy heath, sometimes with Banksia robur or species of Xyris. It occurs in near-coastal areas of south-eastern Queensland, and south to the Sydney region of New South Wales.[7]