Acrotriche fasciculiflora



Acrotriche fasciculiflora, commonly known as pink ground-berry, is a flowering plant in the family Ericaceae. It is a rigid shrub with lance-shaped leaves, pale pink flowers and flattened spherical, pink fruit.

Description
Acrotriche fasciculiflora is a rigid shrub that typically grows a height of 0.5–1.5 m and has reddish-brown young branches. The leaves are lance-shaped, 7–12 mm long, 2-4 mm wide on a petiole 0.2–0.5 mm long and taper to a fine point. The flowers are pale pink in densely crowded spikes at the base of the stem or sometimes at the base of branches, sometimes forming a mass 5–7 mm in diameter. There are egg-shaped to oblong bracts 1.5–2.4 mm long and bracteoles 2.0–2.3 mm long at the base of the sepals. The sepals are sparsely hairy, 3.3–5.1 mm long and 1.2–1.8 mm wide and the petals are joined at the base to form a tube 4.4–8.2 mm long with lobes 2.4–2.6 mm long. The anthers are pale orange and the ovary is glabrous, 0.8–1.1 mm long and 0.7–0.9 mm wide. Flowering occurs between August and October and the fruit is pink, flattened spherical, 2.0–2.9 mm long and 2.5–3.3 mm long.

Taxonomy and naming
This species was first formally described in 1852 by Eduard August von Regel who gave it the name Froebelia fasciculora in his botanical magazine Gartenflora. In 1868, George Bentham transferred the species to the genus Acrotriche as A. fasciculiflora in his Flora Australiensis. The specific epithet (fasciculiflora) means "flowers in a small bundle".

Distribution and habitat
Pink ground-berry grows in open sclerophyll forest in the southern Mount Lofty Ranges and on Kangaroo Island in South Australia.