Acrotriche patula
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Acrotriche patula | |
|---|---|
 | |
| In Lincoln National Park | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Asterids |
| Order: | Ericales |
| Family: | Ericaceae |
| Genus: | Acrotriche |
| Species: | A. patula |
| Binomial name | |
| Acrotriche patula | |
Acrotriche patula, commonly known as shiny ground-berry[2] is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae and is endemic to the south of continental Australia. It is a rigid, prickly shrub with egg-shaped or narrowly egg-shaped leaves and small green, tube-shaped flowers and fleshy, red, spherical or oval fruit.
Acrotriche patula is a rigid, divaricately branched, prickly shrub that typically grows to up 60 cm (24 in) high and wide, its young branchlets reddish-brown. Its leaves are thick, widely spreading, egg-shaped or narrowly egg-shaped, sharply pointed, 8–16 mm (0.31–0.63 in) long, 3–6 mm (0.12–0.24 in) wide and glabrous. The flowers are arranged in leaf axils in groups of 5 or 10, with bracts 0.7–0.9 mm (0.028–0.035 in) long and egg-shaped to more or less circular bracteoles 1.1–1.5 mm (0.043–0.059 in) long. The sepals are egg-shaped, 1.5–1.7 mm (0.059–0.067 in) long. The flowers are greenish or yellowish-green and fused at the base to form a cylindrical tube, 2.2–4.2 mm (0.087–0.165 in) long with widely-spreading lobes 1.0–1.3 mm (0.039–0.051 in) long. Flowering occurs from June to September and the fruit is a red, spherical or flattened spherical drupe3.5–5.0 mm (0.14–0.20 in) long and 4–6.3 mm (0.16–0.25 in) wide.[2][3][4]
