''Homoranthus bebo'' 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 ...

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 ...

to a small area in northern New South Wales. It is a low-lying shrub with leaves that are usually flat and with groups of up to ten yellow flowers. It is only known from the Dthinna Dthinnawan Nature Reserve near

Yetman Yetman is a hamlet in the New England region of northern New South Wales, Australia. At the , Yetman and the surrounding area had a population of 178. It is located on the Macintyre River about south of the Queensland border and north of Sy ...

Description

''Homoranthus bebo'' is a small shrub high and wide with branches lying close to the ground. The leaves are narrowly egg-shaped, shiny, lime-green, long, smooth, arranged in opposite pairs along a short stem with a short protruding point at the apex. The single lemon coloured five petal flowers are held erect in the leaf axils on a peduncle long. Flowering occurs mostly from September to November.

Taxonomy and naming

''Homoranthus bebo'' was first formally described in 2011 by Lachlan Copeland,

Lyndley Craven Lyndley Alan Craven (3 September 1945 – 11 July 2014) was a botanist who became the Principal Research Scientist of the Australian National Herbarium. Lyndley ("Lyn") Craven worked for the CSIRO plant taxonomy unit of the New Guinea Survey Gro ...

and Jeremy Bruhl from a specimen collected in the Bebo State forest (now the Dthinna Dthinnawan Nature Reserve) in 2001 and the description was published in ''

Australian Systematic Botany ''Australian Systematic Botany'' is an international peer-reviewed scientific journal published by CSIRO Publishing. It is devoted to publishing original research, and sometimes review articles, on topics related to systematic botany, such as bio ...

''. 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 ...

(''bebo'') refers to the name of the state forest where the type specimen was collected.

Distribution and habitat

Currently known from a single population in Dthinna Dthinnawan Nature Reserve (formerly Bebo State Forest)~20km north-north east of

New South Wales. This species grows in deep sandy soils over sandstone.

Conservation

''Homoranthus bebo'' is classified as "critically endangered" under the Australian Government EPBC Act of 1999. It is known from a single population of at least 300 individuals.

References

External links

The Australasian Virtual Herbarium – Occurrence data for ''Homoranthus bebo''
{{commonscat, Homoranthus bebo

bebo Bebo ( ) was an American Social networking service, social networking website that originally operated from 2005 until its bankruptcy in 2013 and relaunched in February 2021. The site relaunched several times after its bankruptcy with a number ...

Flora of New South Wales Myrtales of Australia Plants described in 2011