''Epacris petrophila'', commonly known as snow heath, is a species of flowering plant from the heath family, Ericaceae, and is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It is an erect, bushy, sometimes low-lying shrub with egg-shaped to elliptic leaves and tube-shaped white flowers in small clusters on the ends of branches.

Description

''Epacris petrophila'' is an erect, bushy, sometimes low-lying shrub that typically grows to a height of and has softly-hairy branchlets. Its leaves are erect, elliptic or egg-shaped, sometimes with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide long, and with minute teeth on the edges. The flowers are borne in clusters up to long on the ends of branches and are more or less sessile with 8 to 10

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 at the base. The sepals are egg-shaped, long and the petals are white, joined at the base to form a bell-shaped tube long with lobes long. Flowering occurs from December to February and the fruit is a capsule about long.

Taxonomy

''Epacris petrophila'' was first formally described in 1857 by Joseph Dalton Hooker in '' The botany of the Antarctic voyage of H.M. Discovery ships Erebus and Terror. III. Flora Tasmaniae'' from specimens collected by

Ronald Campbell Gunn Ronald Campbell Gunn, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS, (4 April 1808 – 13 March 1881) was a South African-born Australian Botany, botanist and politician. Early life Gunn was born at Cape Town, Cape Colony, (now South Africa), the son of W ...

. 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 ...

(''petrophila'') means "rock-loving".

Distribution and habitat

Snow heath grows in the alpine and subalpine feldmark, heath and

bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; a ...

in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory south from Mount Kosciuszko, in a few locations in Victoria and in Tasmania where it is common on the Central Plateau.

Ecology

The seeds of ''E. petrophila'' weigh about and are only long, suggesting dispersal by wind or water, or in mud adhering to the feet of birds. The seed of ''Epacris petrophila'' was featured on the $1 postage stamp issued on 8 October 2019 by

Australia Post Australia Post, formally the Australian Postal Corporation, is the government business enterprise that provides postal services in Australia. The head office of Australia Post is located in Bourke Street, Melbourne, which also serves as a post o ...

.Australian Plants on Stamps
The stamp issue was one of three stamps, each featuring the seeds of threatened Australian plant species, recognising the work of the Australian Seed Bank Partnership.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15376450 Ericales of Australia petrophila Flora of New South Wales Flora of Victoria (state) Flora of Tasmania Flora of the Australian Capital Territory Taxa named by Joseph Dalton Hooker Plants described in 1857