''Sprengelia minima'' is a species of flowering plant of the 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 Tasmania. It is a small shrub usually growing in alpine

cushion plant A cushion plant is a compact, low-growing, mat-forming plant that is found in alpine, subalpine, arctic, or subarctic environments around the world. The term "cushion" is usually applied to woody plants that grow as spreading mats, are limited in ...

s and has many branches, overlapping, stem-clasping, sharply-pointed leaves, and white, tube-shaped flowers arranged singly on the ends of branches.

Description

''Sprengelia minima'' is a small shrub that usually grows in alpine cushion plants, sometimes with prostrate branchlets on their surface, and has many branches. The leaves overlap each other and have a stem-sheathing base, tapering to a sharply-pointed tip, long and wide. The flowers are arranged singly, mainly on the ends of branches, with leaf-like

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 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 broadly lance-shaped, long and the petals are white, joined at the base to form a tube about long with lobes long. Flowering occurs from December to January and the fruit is a capsule.

Taxonomy

''Sprengelia minima'' was first formally described in 2013 by R.K. Crowden in the journal '' Telopea''. 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 ...

(''minima'') refers to the small size of the plant, compared to others in the genus.

Habitat and distribution

This sprengelia is moderately common in alpine areas of Tasmania, including on Mount Field and the Hartz Range, where it grows in cushion plants like ''

Dracophyllum minimum ''Dracophyllum minimum'', commonly known as heath cushionplant or claspleaf heath, is a species of bolster cushion plant endemic to Tasmania, Australia. It is a low growing, highly compacted plant with white flowers, commonly found in alpine areas ...

'' and '' Domatia novae-zelandiae''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q65949209 Epacridoideae

minima In mathematical analysis, the maxima and minima (the respective plurals of maximum and minimum) of a function, known collectively as extrema (the plural of extremum), are the largest and smallest value of the function, either within a given ran ...

Ericales of Australia Flora of Tasmania Plants described in 2013