Sannantha crassa

Sannantha crassa is a species in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is a shrub with elliptic to lance-shaped leaves and groups of 7 to 9 white flowers arranged in leaf axils.

Description

Sannantha crassa is a shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has grey, scaly bark. Its leaves are elliptic to lance-shaped, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are up to in diameter and arranged in leaf axils in groups of 7 to 9 on a peduncle long. Each flower is on a pedicel long with 2 bracts at the base, but that fall off as the flowers develop. The floral tube is long, the sepal lobes long and thin. The petals are white, long and wide and there are 8 to 11 stamens. Flowering has been observed in January and February and the fruit is a bell-shaped to hemispherical capsule in diameter.

Taxonomy

This species was first formally described in 1999 by Anthony Bean who gave it the name Babingtonia crassa in the journal Austrobaileya from specimens he collected at Dangars Falls in 1995. In 2007, Peter Gordon Wilson changed the name to Sannantha crassa in Australian Systematic Botany. The specific epithet means "thick", referring to the leaves.

Distribution and habitat

Sannantha crassa grows in rocky places on steep slopes on the eastern edge of the Northern Tablelands from near Armidale to southern Barrington Tops in eastern New South Wales.