Erect, often rounded, divaricately-branched shrub 0.5–3 m high. Stems rigid, terete, occasionally glaucous; smooth, wrinkled to slightly striate, pungent. Inflorescence a raceme (very rarely c. corymbose), rachis 1–12 mm long, often glaucous. Flowers 10–25, floral tube often glaucous; tepals 0.5–0.8 mm long, apex incurved and hooded, slightly thickened adaxially, usually with a small tuft of minute hairs on the adaxial surface at or just above the point of filament insertion (sometimes obscured by stamens), reddish, maroon or purplish, drying dark; disc lobed, 0.6–0.7 mm diam. Drupe ellipsoid to oblong-ellipsoid, 5–8 mm long, epicarp fleshy, green, ripening maroon, purplish or brownish-red, often glaucous. Flowers mainly Dec.–Mar.
LoM, MuM, Wim, VRiv, Gold, GGr, DunT. Also SA, NSW. Occurs in open-forest, woodland, mallee and heath communities, but also in subalpine eucalypt woodland in the Grampians.
Source:
Lepschi, B.J. (1999). Leptomeria. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 4, Cornaceae to Asteraceae, pp. 33–35. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
