''Darwinia leptantha'' is a flowering plant in the family

Myrtaceae Myrtaceae, the myrtle family, is a family of dicotyledonous plants placed within the order Myrtales. Myrtle, pōhutukawa, bay rum tree, clove, guava, acca (feijoa), allspice, and eucalyptus are some notable members of this group. All speci ...

. It is an upright, small shrub with white flowers turning pink with age, triangular-shaped leaves and is endemic to New South Wales.

Description

''Darwinia leptantha'' is an upright shrub high with smooth, flattened leaves long. The slender tubular flowers are borne at the end of short erect stems in tight clusters of 2-8, long, about in diameter, petals long, white when young turning pink with age and on a

peduncle Peduncle may refer to: *Peduncle (botany), a stalk supporting an inflorescence, which is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed *Peduncle (anatomy), a stem, through which a mass of tissue is attached to a body **Peduncle (art ...

long. The

bract 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 are leaf-like long, bracteoles reddish to yellowish brown, long, style white, straight or curved and long. Flowering occurs from late autumn to spring.

Taxonomy and naming

''Darwinia leptantha'' was first formally described in 1962 by

Barbara Gillian Briggs Barbara Gillian Briggs (born 1934) is one of the foremost Australian botanists. The '' IK'' lists 205 names of plants which have been published or co-published by her. She was one of the botanists in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, of th1998 AP ...

and the description was published in ''

Contributions from the New South Wales National Herbarium ''Telopea'' is a fully open-access, online, peer-reviewed scientific journal that rapidly publishes original research on plant systematics, with broad content that covers Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. The journal was established in 1975 a ...

''. 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 ...

(''leptantha'') means "slender flowered".

Distribution and habitat

This darwinia grows in coastal heath and sandy soils on the coast and ranges from

Laurieton Laurieton is a coastal town on the Mid North Coast of the Australian state of New South Wales. Laurieton is the largest town in the Camden Haven district. Laurieton is 365 km

to the Clyde River of eastern New South Wales.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15396102 leptantha Flora of New South Wales Plants described in 1962 Taxa named by Barbara G. Briggs