''Acrotriche depressa'', commonly known as wiry ground-berry or honeypots, is a flowering plant in 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 ...
. It is a small shrub with crowded greyish-green leaves and white or green flowers and grows in southern Australia.
Description
''Acrotriche depressa'' is a small, dense, mat forming, upright shrub to high, in diameter and branchlets covered in soft, upright hairs to rigid, long, upright hairs. The leaves are crowded, spreading or slightly erect, greyish olive green, narrow-triangular, long, wide, margins slightly recurved, usually toothed, veined on lower surface, pointed at the apex and in whorls around the stem. The white or greenish tubular flowers are long in dense clusters of 5-10 on spikes long hidden amongst older branches. The
bracteole
In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...
s mostly long,
sepal
A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coined b ...
s long. Flowering occurs from August to September and the fruit is a
drupe
In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kernel'') ...
, globular-shaped, greyish green, dark purple at maturity and up to wide.
Taxonomy and naming
''Acrotriche depressa'' was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown and the description was published in ''
Prodromus florae Novae Hollandiae
''Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen'' (Prodromus of the Flora of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land) is a flora of Australia written by botanist Robert Brown and published in 1810. Often referred to as ''Prodromus Flora Novae ...
''. The
specific epithet
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
(''depressa'') means "depressed" referring to its' growth habit.
Distribution and habitat
Honeypots grows in sclerophyll forest on a variety of soils, including loam, basalt, granite and sandy soil in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales.