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Electronic Flora of South Australia genus Fact Sheet

Family: Ericaceae
Leucopogon

Citation: R. Br., Prod. Fl. Nov. Holl. 541 (1810).

Derivation: Greek leukon, white; pogon, beard; alluding to the white-bearded corolla lobes.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Bearded-heaths.

Description:
Slender often diffuse or strong open-branched shrubs or small trees; stems erect to spreading, glabrous to pubescent; branchlets usually red-brown, puberulent; leaves usually evenly spaced, sometimes more scattered or crowded, erect to reflexed, aristate or with a callus tip, sessile or shortly petiolate, usually concolorous, lamina surfaces glabrous or pubescent, striate abaxially, with entire glabrous or ciliolate margins.

Flowers in solitary or clustered spikes, each flower subtended by a single bract and 2 bracteoles; peduncles usually puberulent; bracts, bracteoles and sepals usually ovate to orbicular, with the midrib thickened towards the apex, glabrous except for ciliolate margins; corolla tube usually shorter than the lobes, externally glabrous, internally glabrous or puberulent near the throat or with basal lobe hairs flexed into the tube; lobes valvate in bud, erect to spreading in the open flower, usually glabrous outside, white-bearded inside but often with the tip glabrous; anthers partly enclosed in the tube, with without a paler sterile tip, filaments slender, terete, inserted at the throat; ovary spherical to ovoid, usually glabrous, 2-5-celled, with 1 ovule per cell, style usually glabrous, stigma lobed; nectary continuous or in 5 scales, usually glabrous.

Fruit a drupe.

Distribution:  About 143 species, native to Australia, Malaysia, Indo-China, New Caledonia, the Pacific Islands and New Zealand.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:
1. Inflorescence axillary only; leaf tip usually aristate (a callus in L. woodsii)
 
2. Inflorescence 1- or 2-flowered
 
3. Leaves with an aristate tip; flowers initially erect, later drooping
L. clelandii 1.
3. Leaves with a callous tip; flowers pendulous from the bud stage
L. woodsii 12.
2. Inflorescence 2-8- rarely 11-flowered
 
4. Leaves concave abaxially
L. rufus 10.
4. Leaves flat to convex abaxially
 
5. Leaf lamina convex abaxially; leaves oblong to elliptic, 2.7-15.5 mm long, 0.7-2.6 mm wide
L. ericoides 6.
5. Leaf lamina usually flat abaxially; leaves broadly ovate to orbicular, 2.7-10 mm long, 3.1-12 mm wide
L. cordifolius 3.
1. Inflorescence terminal only, or terminal and in the upper axils; leaf tip a callus
 
6. Leaves concave abaxially
 
7. Leaf apex recurved, base cordate and stem-clasping; fruit a depressed sphere
L. costatus 4.
7. Leaf apex straight, base acute to obtuse; fruit oblong
 
8. Leaf lamina thick, lower surface with 3 parallel veins then reticulate to the margin
L. virgatus 11.
8. Leaf lamina thin, lower surface with veins faintly striate
L. concurvus 2.
6. Leaves flat to convex abaxially
 
9. Sepals over 2 mm long
L. concurvus 2.
9. Sepals 1-2 mm long
 
10. Leaves over 10 mm long
 
11. Ovary 2- or 3-celled; fruit orange or red, ellipsoid to ovoid, 2.3-3.3 mm high
L. lanceolatus 8.
11. Ovary 4- or 5-celled; fruit white, spherical, 4.5-5 mm high
L. parviflorus 9.
10. Leaves to 10 mm long
 
12. Leaves sessile, erect or suberect; leaf lamina usually spirally twisted; leaf base truncate or acute
L. glacialis 6.
12. Leaves with petioles to 1.2 mm long, spreading to reflexed; leaf lamina not twisted; leaf base broadly acute to obtuse
L. hirsutus 7.

Author: Not yet available


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