Styphelia acuminata

Styphelia acuminata is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae and is endemic to the Northern Territory. It is a compact, erect shrub with narrowly elliptic or lance-shaped leaves and small groups of white or cream-coloured flowers.

Description
Styphelia acuminata is a compact, erect or rounded shrub that typically grows to a height of 0.5–2 m with soft hairs and prominent leaf scars on the branchlets. Its leaves are sessile, narrowly elliptic or lance-shaped, 5–17 mm long and 1–2.5 mm wide with a sharply-pointed tip. The flowers are arranged in pairs or three on a peduncle 0.5–1 mm long with an egg-shaped bract about 0.5 mm long and bracteoles 1.3–1.5 mm long at the base. The sepals are egg-shaped, 2.2–2.5 mm long and the petals are white or cream-coloured, joined at the base to form a tube about 1 mm long with hairs inside, the lobes 1.8–2.3 mm long. Flowering occurs from September to March and the fruit is a more or less spherical drupe 3.0–3.8 mm long.

Taxonomy and naming
This species was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown who gave it the name Leucopogon acuminatus in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae. In 1824, Kurt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel transferred the species to Styphelia as S. acuminata in Systema Vegetabilium. The specific epithet (acuminata) means "pointed".

Distribution and habitat
Styphelia acuminata mainly grows in heath and woodland in the Top End of the Northern Territory from Bathurst and Melville Islands to the Gulf of Carpentaria and as far south as Katherine.