Styphelia clelandii, commonly known as Cleland's bearded-heath,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae and is endemic to the south-east of continental Australia. It is weak, open shrub with broadly egg-shaped leaves and white flowers arranged singly or in pairs in leaf axils near the ends of the branches.
Styphelia clelandii is a weak, open shrub that typically grows to a height of and branchlets that are sometimes covered with soft hairs. The leaves are broadly egg-shaped, long and wide and more or less sessile. The flowers are arranged singly or in pairs in leaf axils near the ends of branchlets, with round bracteoles about long. The sepals are oblong, long and glabrous, the petals white and joined at the base to form a cylindrical tube long, the lobes long. Flowering occurs from April to August and the fruit is an oval or elliptic drupe long.[2]
This species was first formally described in 1915 by Edwin Cheel in the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of South Australia from specimens collected by John Burton Cleland near Coonalpyn in 1911.[3] [4] In 1967, James Hamlyn Willis transferred the species to Styphelia as S. clelandii in the journal Muelleria.[5] The specific epithet (clelandii) honours Cleland.
Styphelia clelandii grows in mallee scrub and heath in the south-east of South Australia and to as far east as the Grampians in Victoria.