''Leucopogon muticus'', commonly knwon as blunt 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 eastern Australia. It is an erect, straggling shrub with egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, and small numbers of white, tube-shaped flowers that are densely bearded inside.

Description

''Leucopogon muticus'' is an erect, straggling shrub that typically grows to a height of up to , and has softly-hairy branchlets. Its leaves are egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide on a petiole long. The leaves are flat with 3 to 5 parallel veins. The flowers are arranged in spikes of 4 to 10 up to long in leaf axils on a peduncle about long with

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 long, the petals joined at the base to form a tube long with lobes long and densely bearded inside. Flowering mainly occurs from September to October and the fruit is a bristly, black, elliptic

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 muticus'' was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown in his ''

Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen ''Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen'' (Prodromus of the Flora of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land) is a flora of Australia written by botanist Robert Brown and published in 1810. Often referred to as ''Prodromus Flora Novae ...

''. 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 ...

(''muticus'') means "blunt".

Distribution and habitat

Blunt beard-heath grows in heath and forest on slopes and ridges from sea level to an altitude of in south-east Queensland and in eastern New South Wales as far south as

Cooma Cooma is a town in the south of New South Wales, Australia. It is located south of the national capital, Canberra, via the Monaro Highway. It is also on the Snowy Mountains Highway, connecting Bega with the Riverina. At the , Cooma had a po ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q17244434 muticus Flora of Queensland Flora of New South Wales Plants described in 1810 Taxa named by Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773)