The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network

Species

Sprengelia incarnata

Common Name(s)

Pink swamp heath

Current Conservation Status

2012 - At Risk - Naturally Uncommon

Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2012
The conservation status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2012 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS). This report includes a statistical summary and brief notes on changes since 2009 and replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Authors: Peter J. de Lange, Jeremy R. Rolfe, Paul D. Champion, Shannel P. Courtney, Peter B. Heenan, John W. Barkla, Ewen K. Cameron, David A. Norton and Rodney A. Hitchmough. File size: 792KB

Previous Conservation Status

2009 - At Risk - Naturally Uncommon
2004 - Range Restricted

Qualifiers

2012 - DP, SO

Authority

Sprengelia incarnata Sm.

Family

Ericaceae

Brief Description

Shrub to 2m tall with erect twigs covered in spirals of small twisted pointed leaves and with pinkish flowers and dry fruit inhabiting a few sites in Fiordland. Leaves 5-10mm long, with wide base that clasps the stem, margin finely hairy (lens needed). Flowers 5mm wide, towards tip of twigs. Capsule 2-3mm wide.

Flora Category

Vascular - Native

NVS Species Code

SPRINC

Structural Class

Dicotyledonous Trees & Shrubs

Synonyms

None applicable to New Zealand

Distribution

Indigenous. New Zealand: South Island (Fiordland National Park (Chalky-Dusky Peninsula (Wilson River-Macnamara Creek Saddle), Resolution Island (Five Fingers Peninsula)). Also Australia (Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales)

Habitat

Coastal to montane in open, windswept, tussock-bog containing kahikatoa (Leptospermum scoparium), yellow silver pine (Lepidothamnus intermedius), Dracophyilum longifolium, Gleichenia dicarpa, Sphagnum moss, and Bulbinella gibbsii var. balanifera

Features

Spindly, erect, sparingly branched, glabrous shrubs, up to 2 m tall, sometimes low and spreading. Young stems honey-brown to reddish brown, smooth, older stems grey-brown or grey. Leaves persistent, eventually falling on older branches leaving a smooth surface without leaf scars; imbricate, with broad sheathing base completely enclosing stem, lamina bronze-green, green to yellow-green, at first widening broader than sheath and then tapering to hard, pungent tip, concave, rigid, spreading, 7-20(-25) mm long. Flowers solitary, terminal on short lateral branches, crowded toward the end of the main branches, inflorescences ovate, bracts numerous, foliose, similar to but smaller than leaves, sometimes obscuring flowers. Sepals and petals 5, equal, 5-10(-12) mm long, spreading widely at anthesis. Sepals, rigid, lanceolate, scarious, pale pink or greenish. Corolla-tube very short or formed from the petals which are free at the base, and then cohering to form a short tube above; if tube present then lobes long, narrowly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, spreading, dark pink. Stamens 5, inserted on the receptacle, cohering to form a tube around the style, filaments pink or pinkish-white ± flattened upper ½-¼ papillose-hairy; anther basifixed, bilocular dehiscing along a single longitudinal slit, pollen dark orange yellow to orange-brown. Nectary absent. Ovary 5-locular. Style filiform, = to slightly longer than stamens, pink; stigma capitate, scarcely wider than style, dark carmine. Fruit a dry, yellow-grown, subcylindrical capsule.

Similar Taxa

None. However, Sprengelia could possibly be confused with Dracophyllum from which it differs by its leaves which when they fall leave no abscission mark resulting in smooth bark; by the terminal, solitary, much larger, pink flowers; and by the stamens cohering to form a tube around the style

Flowering

Throughout the year

Flower Colours

Green,Red / Pink

Fruiting

Throughout the year

Propagation Technique

Difficult. Should not be removed from the wild.

Threats

A Naturally Uncommon, Range-restricted species locally abundant within its few known habitats. There are no known threats. All known populations occur within Fiordland National Park.

Endemic Taxon

No

Endemic Genus

No

Endemic Family

No

This page last updated on 19 Nov 2014