About Leptomeria drupacea (Labill.) Druce
Leptomeria drupacea is an upright green shrub that can reach up to 3 meters in height. It has flexible, nearly cylindrical branchlets marked with longitudinal ridges. Its leaves and bracts are sessile, scale-like, with a truncate base and a narrowly pointed apex; they measure 0.71mm long and 0.30mm wide. The species produces bisexual flowers arranged in lateral racemes that typically hold 10 to 16 flowers each. The flower pedicel is indistinct and difficult to distinguish from the floral tube. Tepals are white to cream, flushing reddish-pink as they age, and measure 0.61mm long. They are concave, with an incurved, adaxially thickened apex that forms a hood; tiny adaxial hairs are restricted to small tufts. The deeply lobed floral disk has a diameter of 0.60mm, and anthers, filaments, and style typically measure between 0.10 and 0.15mm long. The smooth fruit is a drupe 3 to 6mm in size, oval to nearly round with a thick, fleshy epicarp. Drupes start green and ripen to reddish, and are edible. Flowering takes place from late spring to summer. Leptomeria drupacea grows in open eucalypt forests and woodlands, heath, heath-sedgelands, and sandy plant communities across eastern mainland Australia and Tasmania, growing alongside eucalypts, wattles, and banksias.
