Styphelia imbricata explained

Styphelia imbricata is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae and is endemic to south-east Queensland. It is an erect shrub with glabrous branches, crowded, often overlapping, egg-shaped leaves, and white, bell-shaped flowers that are bearded inside.

Description

Styphelia imbricata is an erect shrub that typically grows to a height of about and has widely-spreading, glabrous branches. Its leaves are sessile, egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base and less than long. The leaves are crowded, often overlapping, and have a fine sharp point on the rounded tip. The flowers are arranged in leaf axils on a short peduncle with small bracts and broad bracteoles less than half as long as the sepals. The sepals are about long and the petals white, forming a bell-shaped tube about as long as the sepals, with lobes about as long as the petal tube.[1]

Taxonomy

This species was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown who gave it the name Leucopogon imbricatus in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen.[2] [3] In 1824, Kurt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel transferred the species to Sprengelia and gave it the name S. imbricata. The specific epithet (imbricata) means "imbricate".[4]

Distribution

This styphelia grows in south-east Queensland.[5]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Bentham . George . Flora Australiensis . 4 . 1868 . Lovell Reeve & Co. . London . 215 . 28 December 2022.
  2. Web site: Leucopogon imbricatus. APNI. 28 December 2022.
  3. Book: Brown . Robert . Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen . 1810 . London . 545 . 28 December 2022.
  4. Book: Sharr . Francis Aubi . George . Alex . Western Australian Plant Names and Their Meanings . 2019 . Four Gables Press . Kardinya, WA . 9780958034180 . 222 . 3rd.
  5. Web site: Leucopogon imbricatus . Atlas of Living Australia . 28 December 2022.