Acrothamnus spathaceus (Pedley) Quinn

Ericaceae

Quinn, C.J. (2005) Australian Systematic Botany 18(5): 452.

Usually flowers and fruits as a shrub 1-3 m tall but also flowers when smaller, occasionally grows into a small tree about 6 m tall.

Leaf blades about 11-20 x 2-5 mm, midrib absent, veins fine, +/- longitudinal and parallel, radiating from the base. Apex pungent pointed. Young leafy twigs clothed in tortuous erect hairs.

Flowers about 3 mm long. Calyx lobes green or cream-green but with white margins. Corolla lobes recurved, inner surface hairy. Anthers brown or red, +/- pendulous from the filament which is attached near the apex of the anther. Pollen white. Ovary green, seated in and fused to a darker green, 5-lobed disk.

Fruits globular or depressed globular, about 4-5 mm diam. Calyx lobes (five) green, persistent at the base, style scar visible at the apex of the fruit. Endocarp quite hard, longitudinally ribbed, containing up to six seeds.

Cotyledons narrowly elliptic to linear, about 4-6 x 0.5-1 mm, slightly longer and wider than the first group of true leaves. Hypocotyl glabrous but the stem above the cotyledons pubescent. At the tenth leaf stage: leaves sessile, linear (about 4 mm long), longitudinally 5-veined. Seed germination time 199 days.

Endemic to NEQ. Altitudinal range from 450-1250 m. Often grows in open eucalypt forest and wet sclerophyll forest but also occurs on the margins of rain forest, in disturbed rain forest and in stunted windswept rain forest on the mountain tops.

Leucopogon spathaceus Pedley, Austrobaileya 3(2): 268(1990), Type: Queensland, Davies Creek area, January 1962, L.J.Webb & J.G.Tracey 5652; holo: BRI; iso:K,MO,NSW.