Epacris curtisiae

Epacris curtisiae is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae and is endemic to north-western Tasmania. It is a shrub with egg-shaped to almost circular leaves and tube-shaped white flowers crowded in upper leaf axils.

Description

Epacris curtisiae is a shrub that typically grows to a height of and has several erect, slender stems. Its leaves are more or less flat, egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, to more or less circular, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are arranged singly in leaf axils forming clusters long at the ends of branches, each flower on a peduncle long. The five sepals are egg-shaped to elliptic, long and tinged with pink and the petals are white, joined at the base to form a white tube long. The five stamens and the style are enclosed within the petal tube.

Taxonomy and naming

Epacris curtisiae was first formally described in 1988 by S. Jean Jarman in the Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania from specimens collected near the Nelson Bay River in 1985. The specific epithet honours Winifred Curtis.

Distribution and habitat

This epacris grows in wet heathland at altitudes less than and is only known from a small rea of north-western Tasmania.