Styphelia rufa, commonly known as spoon-leaf beard-heath[1] or ruddy bearded-heath,[2] is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae and is endemic to south-eastern continental Australia. It is an erect shrub with erect to spreading, egg-shaped leaves and white, tube-shaped flowers arranged in spikes in two to five leaf axils near the ends of branches.
Styphelia rufa is an erect shrub that typically grows to a height of, its young branchlets sometimes covered with fine, soft hairs. The leaves are egg-shaped and erect to spreading, long and wide. The leaves are sometimes glabrous, otherwise covered with soft hairs, the lower side a paler shade of green, and there is a sharp bristle on the tip. The flowers are borne in spikes in two to five upper leaf axils, the spikes long, with egg-shaped to almost round bracteoles long at the base. The sepals are narrowly egg-shaped, long, the petals white, long and joined at the base, forming a tube, the lobes shorter than the petal tube. Flowering occurs from November to March, and the fruit is about long.[3]
This species was first formally described in 1838 by John Lindley who gave it the name Leucopogon rufus in Thomas Mitchell's journal, Three Expeditions into the interior of Eastern Australia.[4] In 1867, Ferdinand von Mueller transferred the species to Styphelia as S. rufa in his Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae. The specific epithet (rufa) means "reddish".[5]
Spoon-leaf beard-heath occurs in scattered populations in northern and north-eastern Victoria, extending into south-eastern South Australia and the far south of New South Wales. In usually grows in heath, but is also found in open forest and mallee scrub.