| Genus Rupicola | Family Ericaceae
Subfamily Epacridoideae |
Description: Erect or decumbent shrubs; branchlets villous; branches with leaf scars prominent, crescent-shaped.
Leaves crowded, ovate or elliptic, concolorous, lower surface glabrous or pubescent and with 3–5 subparallel veins; shortly petiolate.
Flowers solitary, axillary, extending along branches to form leafy inflorescences; bracts numerous, imbricate, usually glabrous except for ciliolate margins, grading in size to the sepals. Sepals 5, similar to bracts. Corolla tube cylindrical, glabrous, much shorter than sepals; lobes spreading, glabrous, much longer than tube, imbricate in bud. Stamens 5, filaments inserted in base of tube; anthers fused to filament from midpoint or below, exserted, converging but not joined, dehiscing by short apical slit. Nectary absent. Ovary 5-locular with several ovules per loculus; placentation axile; style inserted in depression in ovary, long, well-exserted; stigma small, truncate.
Fruit a loculicidal capsule.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 4 species, endemic Australia. Australia: N.S.W.
Text by J. M. Powell, except for groups with contributors listed
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaves ovate to broad-ovate with a long callous tip, base cordate to more or less auriculate | Rupicola apiculata |
| Leaves elliptic to narrow-elliptic, base tapering | 2 |
| 2 | Erect, multistemmed shrub with leaves erect to suberect, narrow-elliptic | Rupicola sprengelioides |
| Decumbent shrubs with leaves mainly spreading, elliptic to more or less ovate
Back to 1 | 3 |
| 3 | Leaves 15–20 mm long; bracts and sepals acute; sepals 5.5–6 mm long; corolla tube c. 1 mm long, lobes 5.5–9 mm long | Rupicola decumbens |
| Leaves 8–11 mm long; bracts and sepals acute to acuminate; sepals 3.3–5 mm long; corolla tube 1.4–1.5 mm long, lobes 5–6 mm long
Back to 2 | Rupicola ciliata |
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