Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Print Fact Sheet

Leucopogon virgatus var. virgatus

Common name

Common Beard-heath

Family

Ericaceae

Where found

Dry forest, woodland, heath, and grassy areas. Widespread.

Notes

Shrub to 0.5 m high, often sprawling, often with many slender or wiry stems growing from a woody rootstock. Branchlets hairy when young, to almost hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 0.2–2.5 cm long, 0.9–5 mm wide, hairless to hairy or rough, sometimes especially so on the margins, upper surface flattish to concave, tips with a long narrow point, blunt (ACT) or more or less sharp (Vic). Flowers white, often pink in bud, 4-7 mm in diameter, tubular, the tube 1.6–2.2 mm long, with 5 hairy lobes. Flowers erect, 3–7 together at or near the ends of the branchlets. Flowering: June–December.

Varieties not recognised in NSW.

Family was Epacridaceae.

in the ACT it is sprawling or spreading horizontally with the ends growing upwards, with often many slender stems from a woody rootstock; leaves are flattish to concave on the upper surface, hairy, sometimes especially so on the margins, with a long drawn out tip that ends in a small hard protrusion; flowers in a spike of 4-7 flowers at the ends of the branchlets.  https://canberra.naturemapr.org/Community/Sightings/Details/1946630  (RW Purdie) (accessed 19 April 2021)

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=Leucopogon~virgatus (accessed 19 April 2021)