Styphelia deformis

Styphelia deformis is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae and is endemic to eastern coastal Australia. It is a bushy shrub with narrowly egg-shaped leaves, and white, tube-shaped flowers.

Description

Styphelia deformis is a bushy shrub that typically grows to a height of less than, its branchlets more or less glabrous. Its leaves are narrowly egg-shaped, long and wide on a petiole about long. The flowers are arranged on the ends of branches and in upper leaf axils and are sessile with bracteoles long. The sepals are long, the petals white and joined at the base to form a tube about long, the lobes long and softly-hairy inside. Flowering occurs from March to May and is followed by an oblong drupe long.

Taxonomy and naming

This species was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown who gave it the name Leucopogon deformis in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae [et Insulae Van Diemen]. In 1824, Kurt Polycarp [Joachim Sprengel] transferred the species to the genus Styphelia as S. deformis in Systema Vegetabilium. The specific epithet means "departing from the correct shape".

Distribution and habitat

This species of styphelia grows in coastal heath from Hawks Nest, [New South Wales|Hawks Nest] in New South Wales to south-east Queensland.