''Acrothamnus colensoi'' is a plant species from the family

Ericaceae The Ericaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with c.4250 known species spread across 124 genera, making it th ...

and is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It is a short shrub that grow to approximately 50 cm of tall, and that can spread to form mounds of up to 2 m across. Fruit are round and are white, pink or dark red in colour. It can be found in both the North and South Islands, in scrub, tussock grassland and peat bogs, south of the

Kaingaroa Forest Kaingaroa Forest covers 2900 km² of the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand, and is the largest forest plantation in New Zealand, and the second largest in the Southern Hemisphere (after the 6000km² Sabie/Graskop plantation in South Afri ...

. ''Acrothamnus colensoi'' was named in honour of

William Colenso William Colenso (17 November 1811 – 10 February 1899) FRS was a Cornish Christian missionary to New Zealand, and also a printer, botanist, explorer and politician. He attended the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and later wrote an accou ...

, a New Zealand missionary, botanist and politician.

References

Flora of New Zealand Plants described in 1864 Endemic flora of New Zealand Epacridoideae {{Ericaceae-stub