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Electronic Flora of South Australia
Electronic Flora of South Australia
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Electronic Flora of South Australia genus Fact Sheet

Family: Ericaceae
Styphelia

Citation: Smith, Sp. Bot. New Holl. 4:45 (1793-95).

Derivation: Greek styphelos, hard, rough; alluding to the stiff prickly-pointed leaves.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
Shrubs with young branches red-brown, pubescent; leaves erect to spreading, usually flat, acute with aristate tip, sessile, usually somewhat discolorous, paler or glaucous below, with venation inconspicuous or finely striate below, margins glabrous.

Flowers axillary, solitary plus a rudiment or rarely 2 or 3, shortly pedunculate; bracts several, grading to bracteoles; calyx usually coloured; corolla tube narrow-cylindrical, elongated, glabrous outside, hairy inside at the throat and with 5 tufts of hairs below the middle, rarely glabrous; lobes valvate in bud, linear or narrow-lancoleate, bearded inside, much revolute, exposing the stamens; filaments inserted at the throat, slender, somewhat flattened, glabrous; anthers exserted, linear, attached about the middle; nectary with distinct scales or annular; ovary 5-celled, with 1 ovule per cell; style slender, longer than the corolla tube; stigma lobed.

Fruit a drupe with a dry or slightly pulpy mesocarp and a hard bony endocarp.

Distribution:  12 species, endemic to Australia.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:
1. Semi-prostrate shrub with lanceolate to oblanceolate leaves with1 6-20 parallel veins; corolla tube 12.5-15 mm long, with 5 tufts of hair in a ring at the base
S. adscendens 1.
1. Slender erect shrub with ovate leaves with 5-11 veins; corolla tube 3-4.3 mm long, sparsely bearded inside
S. exarrhena 2.

Author: Not yet available


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