About Acrotriche patula R.Br.
Acrotriche patula is a rigid, prickly shrub with widely spreading branches. It typically grows up to 60 cm high and wide, and has reddish-brown young branchlets. Its leaves are thick, glabrous, egg-shaped or narrowly egg-shaped, sharply pointed, between 8–16 mm long and 3–6 mm wide. Flowers are arranged in groups of 5 to 10 in leaf axils. They have egg-shaped bracts 0.7–0.9 mm long, and more or less circular to egg-shaped bracteoles 1.1–1.5 mm long. The sepals are egg-shaped and 1.5–1.7 mm long. The flowers themselves are greenish or yellowish-green, fused at the base to form a cylindrical tube 2.2–4.2 mm long, with widely spreading lobes 1.0–1.3 mm long. Flowering takes place from June to September. The fruit is a red, spherical or flattened spherical drupe 3.5–5.0 mm long and 4–6.3 mm wide. This species, commonly called shiny ground-berry, grows on coastal limestone in mallee scrub. It occurs along the coast of southern Western Australia in the Hampton and Mallee bioregions, and is mostly found in South Australia, including the Nullarbor, Eyre Yorke Block and Kangaroo Island bioregions.
