''Leucopogon gelidus'' 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 native to south-eastern continental Australia. It is a slender, compact shrub with elliptic to egg-shaped leaves, and spikes of drooping, tube-shaped white flowers.

Description

''Leucopogon gelidus'' is a slender, compact shrub that typically grows to a height of up to about and has sparsely softly-hairy branchlets. Its leaves are more or less erect, egg-shaped to lance-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long, wide and

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 ...

. The flowers droop and are arranged in spikes of 3 to 8, long 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 o ...

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 forming a tube long and softly-hairy inside, the petal lobes long. Flowering mainly occurs from September to February and the fruit is a glabrous, pink to red, oval to spherical

drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kernel'') ...

long.

Taxonomy

''Leucopogon gelidus'' was first formally described in 1956 by

Norman Arthur Wakefield Norman Arthur Wakefield (28 November 1918 – 23 September 1972) was an Australian teacher, naturalist, paleontologist and botanist, notable as an expert on ferns. He described many new species of plants. Wakefield was born in Romsey, Victori ...

in ''

The Victorian Naturalist ''The Victorian Naturalist'' is a bimonthly scientific journal covering natural history, especially of Australia. It is published by the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria and is received as part of the membership subscription of that club. From ...

''. 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 ...

(''gelidus'') means "very cold".

Distribution and habitat

This leucopogon grows in subalpine woodland on scree slopes and between rocks at higher altitudes south from

Mount Gingera Mount Gingera is a mountain with an elevation of located within the Brindabella Range on the border between the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales in Australia. The summit of the mountain is located within the ACT, and is the se ...

in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory to Lake Mountain in eastern Victoria.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17242584 gelidus Plants described in 1956 Taxa named by Norman Arthur Wakefield Flora of New South Wales Flora of the Australian Capital Territory Flora of Victoria (Australia)