Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Epacris breviflora

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, ACT.

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, east of Cooma

Shrub. Photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Common name

Drumstick heath 

Family

Ericaceae

Where found

Forest, woodland, alpine herbfields, moist sheltered rock crevices, mountain gullies, damp places, along streams, and in swamps and sphagnum bogs. Mainly mountainous areas, particularly ACT, the mountains to the west, and Kosciuszko National Park.

Notes

Shrub to 2 m high. Sharp leaf tips. Stems with inconspicuous leaf scars; branchlets shortly hairy. Leaves scattered, 0.4–1 cm long, 1.6–6 mm wide, more or less thick, flat to concave in cross section, margins more or less entire. Flowers white, 5–11 mm in diameter, tubular, the tube funnel shaped, with 5 spreading lobes, clustered at the base of the upper leaves, forming heads. No hairs on the inside of the flowers. Flowers and fruits throughout the year, mostly in summer.

Family was Epacridaceae.

All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Epacris~breviflora  (accessed 12 January, 2021)