This tree must rank among one of the most deserving giants of the Wet Tropics.
Without a doubt, it is one of the more (if not most) awe inspiring free standing fig trees in the region. I wonder if this is why it has been called the Abbey tree.
Another one of it’s common names is Poison Fig, and cutters in the past who cut these trees claimed that the tree sap is highly irritant.
And the species is quite distinctive too, with it’s hairy leaves and hairy figs that ripen red.
Some of the most well developed individuals I have encountered are in Cooktown, but it is possible to see some in Kuranda, the Cairns botanical gardens and also in James Cook University.
Erect savanna shrub that I spotted Paluma a decade ago during my PhD fieldwork. What good (and simpler) times! The days were long and life renewing harvest (of new exciting species to learn) did not seem to have an end. Again I wished I had taken more notes. At least 2 other species of Comesperma occurs in the region, and down in Tassie, I know of a twinning species. More on this when I see it again and get more notes.
Small native herb I found in the savanna of Paluma. Simple alternate leaves. I wish I took better notes of this but all I have is a photo. Looking forward to seeing this again sometime.
This is a rather common rainforest tree but I found it be one of the harder species to learn because it does not seem to have any spot characters. But lets enjoy the flowers and fruits first, which are like nothing else.
The flowers are around 1cm and superficially resemble a pea flower. They are much smaller than their endemic relative X. fragrans.
The fruits are drammatic – it “bursts” open to reveal a back seed, like a pearl.
The leaves are pretty non-descript, but if you look hard enough you may find some small dark glands randomly scatter on the leaf underside. The dark yellow and somewhat thickened petiole is also quite diagnostic.
This marvelous tree is an endemic of the Daintree region, although a good sized tree can easily be seen at the Cairns Botanical Gardens.
For a member of the Polygalaceae, this tree has pretty large flowers. And they are beautifully fragrant, as the name suggests. It is also commonly known as Fragrant Boxwood.
The leaves are simple, alternate, has no stipules, hairless on both sides, and have a lanceolate shape with smooth margins. A good spot feature is the pair of glands near the leaf base that is visible on the leaf underside. Also, the leaf petioles seem rather thickened.
It’s an attractive shrub with blazing red flowers, and endemic a small area in north Queensland. For obvious reasons, this species is now cultivated widely in Queensland. I was fortunate to see it at last in the coastal heaths of Hope Vale, north of Cooktown.
Orchids attract my attention. There is something about them as a group is captivating for me and no doubt for many others in a way that leads to a dopamine spike everytime I see an orchid. This applies for even some of the more common species, in this case, Dienia ophrydis.
This terrestrial orchid occurs frequently in colonies in rainforests, often along walking tracks or streamsides.
The species is known as the Common Snout Orchid, and in has also been known scientifically as Dienia montana.
During a routine weed survey along a railway track near Redlynch, north of Cairns, Queensland, my friend Gemma Horner and I found an unfamiliar plant – a shrub c. 1.8 m tall and bearing both flowers and fruits on terminal and axillary panicles. We could tell it was a member of the Malvaceae (the family of Mallows and Hibiscus), but we did not recognize the plant. Later with the help of Malvaceae specialist which we identified as Wissadula contracta (Link) R.E.Fr., which belongs under the subfamily Malvoideae, and which includes familiar genera such as Abelmoschus, Abutilon, Hisbiscus, Malva, Sida, and Urena. There were five individuals of W. contracta at different stages of maturity in the patch suggesting a viable and self-sowing population.
It was an exciting find and the first time I have ever “discovered” something “new”, even if it is an exotic species. We therefore felt it was something we needed to write about to “get the news out” and so we published an article on this in the North Queensland Naturalist (read article here).
Wissadula contracta is quite a distinctive shrub. The leaves are simple, heart-shaped (cordate), are borne on long petioles (0.8-8.0cm) and are alternate and spirally arranged along the stem. The leaf stalk is pulvinate, i.e., it is distinctly thicker where it meets the leaf lamina.
The leaves are also subtended by a pair of narrowly triangular stipules that end in a point. The leaves nearer to the base (the proximal end) tend to be larger, and becoming smaller and more lance-like (cordate-lanceolate) up along the stem as they approach the terminal inflorescence.
The leaf lamina has smooth margins, palmate venation and is green above and glaucous underneath , and measures 3.5-8.0 cm long and 2.5-7.5 cm at their widest. The glaucousness of the leaf underside result from a dense covering of star-shaped (stellate) hairs which obscures the lamina (Fig. 2B). Stellate hairs also occur on the stems and on the inflorescences of the plant, but at a lower density than on the leaf undersurface.
Both terminal and axillary inflorescences are found on the same plant. These inflorescences have a complex structure comprising of a condensed panicle, with flowers borne on individual pedicels, each subtended by a bract. The sepals are green, with five lobes fused up to around halfway. The corolla of the flowers is white, with free petals. Thanks to Gemma for the good flower picture.
The male parts of the flower (androecium) consist of partially fused filaments, forming a short tube at the base with free portions at the apex . In sharp contrast to the white petals, the stamens bear bright orange pollen which is quite striking in the field. The fruits structures called schizocarps, meaning that they split off into separate segments (mericarps) when dry and ripe.
In the field, the species is distingushed from other members of the Malvaceae through the combination of characters such as its cordate to cordate-lanceolate leaves, the presence of 2 to 3 reduced leaves on the distal region of the branches, the congested inflorescences, the white flowers and the five-part fruits. It is most easy mistake it for genera such as Sida and Abutilon, but the lack of teeth on the leaf margins, paniculate inflorescence and distinctive fruits distinguishes W. contracta from species of those genera.
The main thing that keep botanists exploring is the prospect of meeting plants they haven’t yet met. A short walk around Millaa Millaa Falls resulting in one such meeting – with the rather little-known Symplocos hayesii.
The individual I encountered was a rather small shrub just slightly over 1m tall, and it did not immediately strike me as a Symplocos. The alternately arranged leaves were around 10-12cm long and had a rather Annonaceae look in the way it held its leaves in one plane, and in that zig-zag fashion. However, it had well defined teeth on the leaf margins (which is not terribly common in the Annonaceaes I know).
Additional features were the very hairy stems and leaf stalks. The leaves were also hairy underneath upon looking closer I could see that the hairs were mostly, if not only on the midrib and veins. On the upper side of the leaf, the midrib appeared depressed. The main veins join to form loops within the leaf lamina.
Perhaps the most curious feature was the small “runt” leaves (around 2cm long) along the stem where you would expect to find normal leaves. This is probably a spot character for the species.
As is typical of the botany journey, meeting a new plant the first time far from guarantees seeing flowers and fruits. I’ll update again when that happens.
Was shocked to realize that I haven’t yet posted anything on mistletoes in this blog, despite the diversity of these fascinating plants in the region. And there’s no better time to start than when mistletoes are out flowering.
Today I found this growing out of a Rhodomyrtus pervagata shrub. Certainly this must be one of the more striking of our native mistletoes. Yet, it doesn’t have a common name.
If we had to give it a common name based on its scientific name, it would probably go something along the lines of starchy (Amylo) ovary (theca – the ovary locules) net (dictyon) leaf veins (phlebo) mistletoe. So again, starchy-ovaried net-veined mistletoe.
Not very flattering.
However, I suppose this species has one of the “net-veiny” looking leaves among the native mistletoes.
The green or yellow tips of the flowers are quite distinctive, and even though I don’t wish for healthy plants to be parasitized, it would be lovely having a row of shrubs or ornamental trees, each with a flowering Amylotheca. Wouldn’t that be quite a sight.
Other notes: Observed this at near ground level on a rather healthy looking Rhodomyrtus pervagata shrub. The shrub was situated within a revegetation area.
Been in Australia for over a decade gazing at plants, both large and small, grasses and trees, in rain forest and savanna, in the tropics and in temperate zones. I love connecting with people with similar interests. You can read more about me on my About page and at my personal BLOG.
Leaf Whispering in the Tropics 