Styphelia nesophila

Styphelia nesophila is a prickly, prostrate to trailing, low-growing shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has bristly branchlets. Its leaves are egg-shaped to lance-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide. The leaves are glabrous, pale-edged, and have a thin, sharp point up to long on the tip. The flowers are usually arranged singly in leaf axils on a peduncle about long, with bracteoles long at the base. The sepals are long, the petals forming a tube long and hairy inside, the petal lobes long. Flowering occurs from August to October and the fruit is a glabrous, yellow, egg-shaped to elliptic drupe long. ==Taxonomy==

This species was first formally described in 1839 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in his Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis from specimens collected in New Zealand. In 1963, Hermann Otto Sleumer transferred the species to the genus Styphelia as S. nesophila in the journal Blumea. ==Distribution and habitat==

This styphelia grows in forest, shrubland and heath, often in poorly-drained or sandy soils or among rocks, and usually occurs at an altitude of above about . It is found on the tablelands of northern and southern New South Wales, in eastern Victoria, on the Central Plateau of Tasmania, and in New Zealand. == Conservation status ==

Styphelia nesophila is listed as "not threatened" in New Zealand. == Ecology ==

The fleshy fruits are dispersed by frugivory. == References ==