Styphelia Sm.

Scientific Description

Family Epacridaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Shrubs; evergreen; leptocaul, or pachycaul. Helophytic to xerophytic. Leaves minute to small; alternate; spiral, or four-ranked; erect to spreading, ‘herbaceous’, or leathery; imbricate, or not imbricate; subsessile to sessile; non-sheathing; simple. Leaf blades entire; flat, or rolled; palmately veined; cross-venulate, or without cross-venules. Leaves without stipules. Leaf blade margins flat, or revolute. Stem anatomy. Nodes unilacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Entomophilous, or ornithophilous. Pollination mechanism unspecialized.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers usually solitary (plus a rudiment), or aggregated in ‘inflorescences’ (then 2 or 3 together); when solitary, axillary. Inflorescences axillary. Flowers bracteate; bi- bracteolate; small to medium-sized; fragrant, or odourless; regular; 5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk present; intrastaminal; of separate members (5 distinct scales), or annular (and lobed). Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5; 1 -whorled; polysepalous; imbricate; regular; usually coloured; persistent. Corolla 5; 1 -whorled; gamopetalous; lobed; valvate; tubular (elongated, cylindric); regular; glabrous abaxially; hairy adaxially (hairy at the throat and with 5 tufts of hairs below the middle; lobes bearded inside), or glabrous adaxially (rarely); cream, or yellow to green, or pink to red, or white; persistent, or deciduous. Corolla lobes narrow ovate, or linear (and distinctly revolute). Androecium 5. Androecial members adnate (to the corolla); all equal; free of one another; 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5. Staminal insertion in the throat of the corolla tube. Stamens becoming exserted; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous; all alternating with the corolla members. Filaments glabrous; filiform (long and somewhat flattened). Anthers all alike (linear in outline); attached above the middle; becoming inverted during development, their morphological bases ostensibly apical in the mature stamens; non-versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits (by a single median slit); finally introrse (inverting during development); unilocular; bisporangiate; unappendaged. Pollen shed as single grains; without viscin strands. Gynoecium 5 carpelled. The pistil 5 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 5 locular. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; filiform; attenuate from the ovary; apical; becoming exserted. Stigmas 1; small, lobed, truncate, or clavate, or capitate. Placentation apical. Ovules 1 per locule; pendulous; non-arillate; anatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit fleshy, or non-fleshy (mesocarp dry or slightly pulpy); indehiscent; a drupe. The drupes with one stone. Endocarp hard, bony. Seeds endospermic. Endosperm oily. Seeds wingless. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.

Physiology, biochemistry. Aluminium accumulation not found. Photosynthetic pathway: C₃.

Geography, cytology, number of species. Native of Australia. Endemic to Australia. Australian states and territories: Western Australia, or South Australia, or Victoria, or Tasmania. South-West Botanical Province.

Additional characters Prophylls few, or numerous.