''Leucopogon costatus'', commonly known as twiggy beard-heath, is a species of flowering plant in the heath family

Ericaceae The Ericaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with c.4250 known species spread across 124 genera, making it th ...

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 southern continental Australia. It is an erect or straggling shrub with broadly egg-shaped, stem-clasping leaves, and white, tube-shaped flowers, the petals densely bearded on the inside.

Description

''Leucopogon costatus'' is a slender, erect or straggling erect shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has softly-hairy young branchlets. Its leaves are broadly egg-shaped, long and wide with a stem-clasping base. The flowers are arranged in spikes of up to four long in leaf axils or on the ends of branches, with egg-shaped

bracteoles 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 ...

long at the base. The

sepal A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coined b ...

s are egg-shaped, long, the petals white and joined at the base to form a cylindrical or bell-shaped tube long, the lobes long and densely bearded on the inside.

Taxonomy

Twiggy beard-heath was first formally described in 1885 by

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (german: Müller; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Vict ...

who gave it the name ''Styphelia costata'' in '' Southern Science Record'' from specimens collected by Otto Tepper on

Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island, also known as Karta Pintingga (literally 'Island of the Dead' in the language of the Kaurna people), is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest ...

. In 1918,

John McConnell Black John McConnell Black (28 April 1855 – 2 December 1951) was a Scottish botanist who emigrated to Australia in 1877 and eventually documented and illustrated thousands of flora in South Australia in the early 20th century. His publications assi ...

changed the name to ''Leucopogon costatus'' in the '' Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of South Australia''. 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 ...

(''costatus'') means "ribbed".

Distribution and habitat

''Leucopogon costatus'' grows mallee, scrub and heathland in the

Little Desert National Park The Little Desert National Park is a national park in the Wimmera Mallee region of Victoria, Australia. The national park is situated near Dimboola, approximately west of Melbourne and extends from the Wimmera River in the east to the South ...

and southern

Big Desert Big or BIG may refer to: * Big, of great size or degree Film and television * ''Big'' (film), a 1988 fantasy-comedy film starring Tom Hanks * '' Big!'', a Discovery Channel television show * ''Richard Hammond's Big'', a television show present ...

regions of Victoria and in the south-east of South Australia, including Kangaroo Island.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17243801 costatus Ericales of Australia Flora of Victoria (Australia) Flora of South Australia Plants described in 1885 Taxa named by Ferdinand von Mueller