Epacris browniae Coleby APNI* Description: Erect, woody, virgate shrub, usually to 1 m high.
Leaves crowded in regular array on branchlets becoming more distant as older branches extend, spreading at right angles to branchlet; petiole rigid, straw-coloured, with a crescentic scar at the junction with the stem,Leaves entire, glabrous, markedly concave, broadly trullate, 3–3.5 mm long, 2.5–3 mm wide, curved downwards, rigid, thick, glabrous, dark green and shining above, paler below, apex rounded with a short mucro, leaf base truncate to cordate, veins 5, parallel, visible on abaxial surface with 2 veins often indistinct.
Inflorescence compact, leafy, regular, flowers extending well down the branchlets; flowers solitary in leaf axils; peduncles pale, straw-coloured, 2.5 mm long; bracts several, small, imbricate. Sepals glabrous, elliptical, concave, hyaline, pale green sometimes with longitudinal red-brown stripe, minutely dentate, 1–1.2 mm wide. Corolla white, glabrous, campanulate, 5.5–6.5 mm diameter, lobes spreading, broad and flat and longer than the corolla tube. Stamens adnate to petals for most of their length, filaments equal, anthers level with the throat of the corolla.
Fruit a capsule, brown, c. 2 mm long.
Flowering: Late October through to early December, but mainly November.
Distribution and occurrence: Epacris browniae is an upland species that favours dry, rocky, windy outcrops in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. The conservation status of Epacris browniae is yet to be established. Grows in plateau communities such as Scrub, Montane Heath, and Blue Mountains Escarpment Complex
NSW subdivisions: CT
The epithet honours the memory of Dr Elizabeth Brown (1956–2013), a research bryologist, an Epacris expert, and formerly the Scientific Editor of Telopea, who worked for nearly 24 years at the National Herbarium of New South Wales.
Text by Louisa Murray
Taxon concept: Coleby, D. (2015) Epacris browniae (Ericaceae) in New South Wales Telopea 18: 67–72.
APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data
***The AVH map option provides a detailed interactive Australia wide distribution map drawn from collections held by all major Australian herbaria participating in the Australian Virtual Herbarium project.
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