''Kunzea juniperoides'' is a flowering plant in the myrtle 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 to a small area of New South Wales. It is a small shrub with narrow leaves and small groups of white flowers near the end of the longer branches. It is distinguished from similar kunzeas by the large number of scale-like perules and

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 surrounding the groups of flowers.

Description

''Kunzea juniperoides'' is a shrub which grows to a height of with its branches hairy when young. The leaves are linear in shape, long and less than wide with a petiole less than long. The flowers are arranged in groups of mostly three to eight near the ends of the branches. There are large numbers of broadly egg-shaped

s long and wide and smaller paired bracteoles at the base of the flowers. The

floral cup In angiosperms, a hypanthium or floral cup is a structure where basal portions of the calyx, the corolla, and the stamens form a cup-shaped tube. It is sometimes called a floral tube, a term that is also used for corolla tube and calyx tube. It ...

is hairy and about long. The sepal lobes are egg-shaped to triangular, about long and glabrous. The

petal Petals are modified Leaf, leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often advertising coloration, brightly colored or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the ''c ...

s are white, egg-shaped to almost round and about long. There are about 30-35

stamen The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filame ...

s which are about long.

Taxonomy and naming

''Kunzea juniperoides'' was first formally described in 2016 by Hellmut R. Toelken and the description was published in '' Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Garden''. 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 ...

(''juniperoides'') refers to the similarity of the leaves of this species to those of miniature forms of '' Juniperus communis''. (The

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...

''-oides'' means "likeness" in Latin.) There are two subspecies: * ''Kunzea juniperoides'' subsp. ''juniperoides'' which has leaves which are mostly long and grows in low heath near Braidwood; * ''Kunzea juniperoides'' subsp. ''pervervosa'' which has leaves which are mostly long and grows in woodland on the Pigeon House Range.

Distribution and habitat

This kunzea grows in heath and woodland on the

South Coast South Coast is a name often given to coastal areas to the south of a geographical region or major metropolitan area. Geographical Australia *South Coast (New South Wales), the coast of New South Wales, Australia, south of Sydney * South Coast (Q ...

and nearby tablelands of New South Wales.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q65941624 juniperoides Flora of New South Wales Myrtales of Australia Plants described in 2016 Endemic flora of Australia Taxa named by Hellmut R. Toelken