Styphelia adscendens, commonly known as golden heath,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae and is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It is a prostrate or low-lying shrub with lance-shaped leaves and cream-coloured, pale yellowish-green or reddish flowers arranged singly or in paris in leaf axils.
Styphelia adscendens is a prostrate or low-lying shrub that typically grows to a height of up to about, its branchlets covered with soft hairs. The leaves are lance-shaped, sometimes with the narrower end towards the base, long, wide and often slightly twisted. The flowers are erect, arranged singly or in pairs in leaf axils with lance-shaped bracts long and bracteoles long. The flowers are erect, cream-coloured, pale yellowish-green or reddish, the sepals long and the petals forming a tube long with bearded lobes long. The stamen filaments are long and the style long. Flowering occurs from June to December and the fruit is oval, slightly lobed, and long.[2] [3] [4]
Styphelia adscendens was first formally described in 1810 by botanist Robert Brown in Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae.[5] [6] The specific epithet (adscendens) means "ascending".[7]
Golden heath grows in scrub, woodland and forest from south of Nerriga in New South Wales, in eastern and western Victoria, in far south-eastern South Australia and in Tasmania.[8]