Leucopogon lanceolatus the Lance Beard-heath is a common shrub found in eastern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Found on a variety of soil types and habitats in eucalyptus

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...

 woodland or forest. However, it is rare in Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

.

Two sub-species are recognised; var. gracilis and var lanceolatus.

In 1793 this species first appeared in the scientific literature as Styphelia lanceolata in A specimen of the botany of New Holland

A specimen of the botany of New Holland

A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland, also known by its standard abbreviation Spec. Bot. New Holland, was the first published book on the flora of Australia. Written by James Edward Smith and illustrated by James Sowerby, it was published by Sowerby in four parts between 1793 and 1795...

 published by James Edward Smith

James Edward Smith

Sir James Edward Smith was an English botanist and founder of the Linnean Society.Smith was born in Norwich in 1759, the son of a wealthy wool merchant. He displayed a precocious interest in the natural world...

. And later published in 1810, in the Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae as Leucopogon lanceolatus, authored by the prolific Scottish botanist, Robert Brown

Robert Brown (botanist)

Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...

.

Description

A bushy shrub to 3 metres tall. Leaves are 6 to 34 mm long, 1.3 to 5.5 mm wide, often with three or five parallel leaf veins. Leaves are usually not toothed, though there may be some serrations towards the leaf tip. The same colour green below as above the leaf. White flowers on spikes may appear in all months apart from January. The (edible) red fruit are a drupe

Drupe

In botany, a drupe is a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries...

, 2 or 3 mm in diameter, hairless and smooth surfaced.