''Homoranthus bruhlii'' is a plant in the family Myrtaceae 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 else ...

to a small area on the

Northern Tablelands The Northern Tablelands, also known as the New England Tableland, is a plateau and a region of the Great Dividing Range in northern New South Wales, Australia. It includes the New England Range, the narrow highlands area of the New England regio ...

of New South Wales. It is an upright shrub with

glabrous Glabrousness (from the Latin '' glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...

, pale green, linear leaves and with groups of three or four pale yellowish green flowers in leaf axils. It is only known from a single population near

Tenterfield Tenterfield is a regional town in New South Wales, Australia. At the , Tenterfield had a population of 4,066. Tenterfield's proximity to many regional centres and its position on the route between Sydney and Brisbane led to its development as a ...

Description

The five petalled flowers are held erect in leaf axils and have been recorded in October and November, with fruits forming shortly afterwards.

Taxonomy and naming

''Homoranthus bruhlii'' 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 Gr ...

and Jeremy Bruhl from a specimen collected on private property near Tenterfield in 2002. 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 (''bruhlii'') honours Jeremy Bruhl, Professor of Botany at the University of New England.

Distribution and habitat

This homoranthus grows in skeletal, sandy soil among crevices of granite outcrops.

Conservation status

''Homoranthus bruhlii'' is currently known form a single population of ~20 plants over an area <1ha (2.47 acres). Threatened by an inappropriate fire regime, grazing by feral goats and critically low numbers. A ROTAP conservation code of 2E is recommended following criteria of Briggs and Leigh (1996) ''H. bruhlii'' satisfies the criteria of the IUCN (2010) to be considered 'Critically Endangered.

References

External links

The Australasian Virtual Herbarium – Occurrence data for ''Homoranthus bruhlii''
{{Taxonbar, from= Q56280680 bruhlii Flora of New South Wales Myrtales of Australia Plants described in 2011