Baeckea brevifolia

Baeckea brevifolia is a species of flowering plant in the family Myrtaceae and is endemic to south-eastern New South Wales. It is a shrub with narrow egg-shaped to oblong leaves and white to pink flowers with nine to fifteen stamens.

Description

Baeckea brevifolia is a shrub that typically grows to a height of up to. The leaves are elliptic to narrowly oblong, triangular in cross-section, long, wide and sessile. The flowers are up to wide and arranged singly in leaf axils on a pedicel long with bracteoles long. The five sepals are reddish and lobed, the lobes long. The five petals are white to pale pink and long, there are usually nine to fifteen stamens and the style is about long. Flowering mainly occurs from July to September and the fruit is in diameter.

Taxonomy

The species was first formally described in 1807 by Edward Rudge who gave it the name Leptospermum brevifolium in Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. In 1828, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle changed the name to Baeckea brevifolia in his Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis. The specific epithet means "short-leaved".

Distribution and habitat

This baeckea is a common heathland shrub that mainly grows on sandstone soils on the coast and nearby ranges of New South Wales between Woy Woy and Milton.