Styphelia sieberi, commonly known as prickly beard-heath,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae and is endemic to south-eastern continental Australia. It is an erect, densely-branched shrub with oblong to more or less egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, and white, tube-shaped flowers arranged singly in upper leaf axils.
Styphelia sieberi is an erect, densely-branched shrub that typically grows to a height of up to about, and has softly-hairy branchlets. The leaves are oblong to more or less egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide on a petiole long. The edges of the leaves are finely toothed, there is a sharp point up to long on the tip, and the surfaces are more or less glabrous. The flowers are arranged singly in upper leaf axils on a peduncle about long, with bracteoles long at the base. The sepals are long, the petals white and joined at the base to form a tube long with lobes long. Flowering occurs from May to October and the fruit is a smooth, glabrous, oval to elliptic drupe long.[2] [3]
This species was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown who gave it the name Leucopogon juniperinus in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen.[4] [5] In 2020, Michael Hislop, Darren Crayn and Caroline Puente-Lelievre transferred the species to Styphelia as S. sieberi in Australian Systematic Botany. The name S. juniperina was not available, because it had already been given to a species, now known as Leptecophylla juniperina. The specific epithet (sieberi) honours Franz Sieber.[6]
Prickly beard-heath grows in forest and open shrubland on the coast and nearby tablelands of south-eastern Queensland, New South Wales and east of the Mitchell River in Victoria.[7]