The species is named after the artist Thomas McCrae (1830–1901).

Subalpine Beard-Heath.

"In valleys in the sources of the Mitta Mitta, near Mount Hotham and Mount La Trobe, as also along the torrents of the Cobberas Mountains (5–6000 feet)", Vic., F. von Mueller s.n.; holo: MEL 1511959.

Spreading to erect shrub to 3 m high. Branches spreading to erect. Branchlets erect, yellowish brown, pubescent to villous. Bark on older branches smooth to finely fissured. Leaves crowded in upper parts of branches, spreading to spreading at right angles, young leaves light green; petiole 0.5–0.8 mm long, glabrous; lamina elliptic to ovate-triangular, 4–8 mm long, 2–4 mm wide, flat to concave; abaxial surface glabrous, midrib plus 2 flat primary veins; base obtuse to rounded; apex subacute to obtuse, straight; margins entire to ciliate in the upper half. Inflorescence a 2–5-flowered spike, with erect to spreading flowers. Peduncle puberulent. Flower bracts broadly ovate to ovate-orbicular, glabrous, apex obtuse, margin ciliolate. Bracteoles with lower ones loosely imbricate, oblong to ovate, 1.2–1.8 mm long, glabrous, margin ciliolate, apex obtuse. Sepals light green to white, oblong to ovate, 2–2.5 mm long, shorter than the corolla tube, glabrous, apex obtuse, margins ciliolate. Corolla tube white, campanulate, straight, 2.2–4 mm long, glabrous outside, hairy inside below the lobes; corolla lobes shorter than or equal to the corolla tube, spreading to recurved, broadly triangular, 1.7–2.1 mm long, adaxially densely hairy over the entire surface. Nectary annular, glabrous. Filaments shorter than anther, white, terete and adnate for most of its length; anthers purple. Ovary light green, depressed globose, 4- or 5-locular, apex tapering; style light green to white, tapering to stigma, 1–1.2 mm long; stigma at or close to the base of anthers, not distinct from style. Fruit longer than calyx, red to dark red, globose to depressed globose, 3.8–4 mm long, 4.5–6 mm wide, glabrous, apex round, style persistent.

Flowers unisexual, not pedicellate above the bracteoles; corolla lobes shorter than the tube; corolla tube longer than the sepals, sparsely hairy in the upper half.

Flowers September–February.

Native.

Southern N.S.W. to eastern Vic.

Grows in grassland, shrubland, eucalypt woodland, mesic forest and eucalypt sclerophyll forest, in sandy loam to sandy soils derived from granite; elevations 360–1700 m.

Protected in the Kosciuszko National Park and the Deua National Park.

N.S.W.: Kosciuszko National Park, 200 m SW of Charlotte Pass, to the W of Summit Rd, 15 Mar. 2018, D.E. Albrecht 15262 (CANB); c. 37 km N of Khancobahn, Cabramurra Rd, 21 Feb. 2005, S.W.L. Jacobs 9247 (CANB).

Vic.: Baw Baw National Park, Mount Erica, c. 300 m from the summit along the track to Mushroom Rocks, 18 Mar. 2017, N.G. Karunajeeva 1539 (MEL); Snowfields, W side of Mount Baw Baw Rd, c. 2 km from Mount Baw Baw Village, 8 Dec. 1995, P.C. Jobson 3991 (CANB).

N.G. Walsh & T.J. Entwisle (eds), Flora of Victoria 3: 504, fig. 102s–u (1996), as Leucopogon maccraei.

Bentham, G. (1868). Flora Australiensis 4: 206.

Dixon, W.A. (1906). The Plants of New South Wales: 244.

Jacobs, S.W.L. & Pickard, J. (1981). Plants of New South Wales: 112.

Mueller, F.J.H. von (1855). Definitions of rare or hitherto undescribed Australian plants: 30.

Mueller, F.J.H. von in Hooker, W.J. (ed.) (1856). Definitions of rare or hitherto undescribed Australian plants, chiefly collected within the boundaries of the Colony of Victoria. Hooker's Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany 8: 163.

Mueller, F.J.H. von (1867). Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae 6(42): 46.

Powell, J.M. in Harden, G.J. (ed.) (1992). Epacridaceae p.p., Flora of New South Wales 3: 425.

Powell, J.M., Walsh, N.G., & Brown, E.A. in Walsh, N.G. & Entwisle, T.J. (ed.) (1996). Leucopogon, Flora of Victoria 3: 503.

Quinn, C.J., Brown, E.A., Heslewood, M.M. & Crayn, D.M. (2005). Generic concepts in Styphelieae (Ericaceae): the Cyathodes group. Australian Systematic Botany 18(5): 439–454.

Published 22 April 2024.