Styphelia filamentosa

Styphelia filamentosa is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae and is endemic to a small area in the south-west of Western Australia. It is a low, compact, spreading shrub with egg-shaped to narrowly elliptic leaves, and white, tube-shaped flowers arranged singly, or in groups of up to four in leaf axils.

Description
Styphelia filamentosa is a low, compact, spreading shrub that typically grows up to 30 cm high and 50 cm wide, its young branchlets with a few sparse hairs. The leaves are erect, narrowly egg-shaped to narrowly elliptic, 5–11 mm long and 1.2–2.0 mm wide on a petiole 0.3–0.6 mm long. There is a sharp point on the end of the leaves and both surfaces are glabrous, the upper surface dark green and the lower surface a much lighter shade of green. The flowers are arranged singly or in groups of up to 4 in leaf axils, with egg-shaped to round bracts 0.4–1.0 mm long and egg-shaped bracteoles 1.0–1.7 mm long and 1.2–1.4 mm long at the base. The sepals are narrowly egg-shaped, 2.5–3.2 mm long and 1.0–1.2 mm wide, the petals white, forming a tube 1.2–1.8 mm long with lobes 2.3–2.8 mm long. Flowering occurs from October to December and the fruit is a narrowly elliptic to more or less cylindrical, 2.1–2.5 mm long and 0.9–1.1 mm wide.

Taxonomy
Styphelia filamentosa was first formally described in 2017 by Michael Clyde Hislop and Caroline Puente-Lelievre in the journal Nuytsia from specimens collected by Hislop in the Alexander Morrison National Park in 2008. The specific epithet (filamentosa) means "thread-like", referring to the thread-like lobes of the anthers.

Distribution and habitat
This styphelia grows in the understorey of heath on deep sand between Eneabba and the Coomallo Nature Reserve east of Jurien Bay in the Geraldton Sandplains bioregion of south-western Western Australia.

Conservation status
Styphelia filamentosa is listed as "Priority Three" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Parks and Wildlife meaning that it is poorly known and known from only a few locations but is not under imminent threat.