Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

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Pentachondra pumila

Common name

Carpet heath

Family

Ericaceae

Where found

Alpine heath, very low shrubland in alpine feldmark, herbfields, grassland, and rocky places. Kosciuszko National Park.

Notes

Prostrate or sprawling shrub to 0.15 m high, forming mats to 1 m or more diameter. Fruit fleshy. Branchlets rough with persistent leaf scars. Stems wiry, hairy, becoming hairless. Leaves crowded, 0.3–0.6 cm long, 0.5-2.5 mm wide,.leathery, bluntly keeled, concave to convex or flat, margins fringed, surfaces hairless, more or less shining, lower surface 5–7-veined. Flowers white, becoming brownish externally, tubular, the tube about 4–5.5 mm long, with 5 lobes about 2–2.5 mm long, hairy inside. Flowers single, more or less stalkless, near the ends of the branches. Flowering: December–Ma rch. Fruit red, 6–8 mm in diameter.

Family was Epacridaceae.

Rare Vic.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Pentachondra~pumila   (accessed 29 January, 2021)