''Styphelia stomarrhena'' (common name - red swamp cranberry) is a small shrub species in the family

Ericaceae The Ericaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with c.4250 known species spread across 124 genera, making it th ...

. It is found in

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to ...

Distribution and habitat

It is found in the

IBRA regions The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) is a biogeographic regionalisation of Australia developed by the Australian government's Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population, and Communities. It was deve ...

of southern

Geraldton Sandplains Geraldton ( Wajarri: ''Jambinu'', Wilunyu: ''Jambinbirri'') is a coastal city in the Mid West region of the Australian state of Western Australia, north of the state capital, Perth. At June 2018, Geraldton had an urban population of 37,648. ...

and northern

Swan Coastal Plain The Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia is the geographic feature which contains the Swan River as it travels west to the Indian Ocean. The coastal plain continues well beyond the boundaries of the Swan River and its tributaries, as a geo ...

bioregions, with some occurrences in the

Avon Wheatbelt The Avon Wheatbelt is a bioregion in Western Australia. It has an area of . It is considered part of the larger Southwest Australia savanna ecoregion. Geography The Avon Wheatbelt bioregion is mostly a gently undulating landscape with low reli ...

and

Jarrah Forest Jarrah forest is tall open forest in which the dominant overstory tree is '' Eucalyptus marginata'' (jarrah). The ecosystem occurs only in the Southwest Botanical Province of Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is ...

bioregions, on deep sandy soils or sand on laterite, in Banksia woodland or heathland communities.

Taxonomy

The species was first described in 1845 as ''Astroloma stomarrhena'' by Otto Wihelm Sonder. In 1964

Hermann Otto Sleumer Hermann Otto Sleumer (February 21, 1906 in Saarbrücken – October 1, 1993 in Oegstgeest) was a Dutch botanist of Germany, German birth. The plant genus, genera ''Sleumerodendron'' Virot (Proteaceae) and ''Sleumeria'' Utteridge, Nagam. & Teo (Icac ...

assigned it to the genus ''

Styphelia ''Styphelia'' is a genus of shrubs in the family Ericaceae, native from Indo-China through the Pacific to Australia. Most have minute or small leaves with a sharp tip, single, tube-shaped flowers arranged in leaf axils and with the ends of th ...

.'' However, this change was not accepted until 2019 when phylogenetic studies by Darren Crayn, Michael Hislop and Caroline Puente-Lelièvre determined that ''Astroloma'' needed to be sunk into ''

''. This resulted in the accepted description as ''Styphelia stomarrhena'' by Hislop and Puente-Lelièvre.

References

{{Ericaceae-stub stomarrhena Flora of Western Australia Plants described in 1845