Plant of the month 05/2022: Glycine pescadrensis

Photo: Val B-Colquhoun

This pretty little plant was spotted by Val during a walk on the bushy slopes of Douglas. What species had she found? At first everyone was stumped. Later, Nanette and Beth worked out the answer: Glycine pescadrensis.

Glycine pescadrensis is a native plant that has been recorded infrequently across much of eastern Australia (Atlas of Living Australia). We found no other details online. If you are familiar with this species, please contact editor@npqtownsville.org.au

You can download Nanette’s key to local Glycine species here.

Plant of the month 04/2022: Hedraianthera porphyropetala

Hedraianthera porphyropetala was a highlight of our March outing to Emmett Creek, along with numerous other fascinating and seldom-seen plants. It was a “new species” for many of us and we found both flowers and fruits on it – how lucky can you get!

Photo: Julia Hazel

Hedraianthera porphyropetala (Celastraceae) in an Australian endemic, growing as an understory shrub or small tree in well-developed rainforest from NE Queensland extending south as far as NE New South Wales.

Photo: Julia Hazel

At Emmett Creek we might not have noticed its rather inconspicuous foliage (photo above) amongst the diversity of species along the bank. Fortunately sharp eyes spotted its tiny jewel-like flowers and unusual fruits, beautifully illustrated in the photo below which was taken at nearby Mackenzie Creek a few years ago.

Photo: John Elliott

Late news: a few fruit capsules collected for the Landcare nursery opened a week later (photo below) and the seeds were promtly sown. Hopefully we’ll hear about seedlings when they sprout eventually. Extra patience will be required as the species is reported to take between 6 and 12 months to germinate.

Photo: Beth Ballment

For more botanical details see the Australian Tropical Rainforest website.

Plant of the month 03/2022: Ackama australiensis

Photo: John Elliott

Ackama australiensis (Cunoniaceae), an interesting Queensland endemic, was spotted during our March outing to Paluma. Thanks to John Elliott for the following details and his fine photos.

Ackama australiensis occurs from the McIlwraith Range in Cape York to south of Townsville. The range of the tree is further limited to upland rainforest above 400m in elevation. It only grows in areas of high rainfall, over 1250mm per annum, and mainly between Atherton and Innisfail and the Cooktown area. It prefers the creeks and drainage areas where it finds soft moist alluvial soils and humus-darkened basaltic loams. Here it will reach its maximum dimensions of around 30 metres with a basal girth of up to 3 metres, although usually rather smaller. The large trees will display conspicuous plank buttresses, and heavy concentrations of lenticels giving the appearance of vertical lines in the bark.

Photo: John Elliott

The compound leaves are pinnate and consist of 5 or more leaflets which are finely toothed. New growth, particularly in young plants, is often very colourful and decorative giving rise to the name Rose Alder. The more southerly variant Ackama paniculata is known as Rose Leaf Marara for much the same reason.

Substantial numbers of small white flowers are produced on large terminal panicles and the fruit consists of small bright red capsules which are usually 4 celled.

Photo: John Elliott

The type specimen was collected by John Dallachy in 1868 from Rockingham Bay but was not described until 1914 by Friedrich Schlechter who named it Betchea australiensis after one Ernst Betche, a botanical assistant at Sydney Herbarium and author. In 1936 the name was revised to Ackama, then more briefly to Caldcluvia after 19th century botanic collector Alexander Caldcleugh, before reverting to its current name. Ackama is derived from the Maori name for Ackama rosifola, ‘makamaka’ recorded by Alan Cunningham in 1839 and changed to conform to botanical Latin!

The Queensland Forest Service were responsible for the common name Rose Alder, because in type and utility the wood resembles that of the European Alder. Among the tree’s other names, Sugar Bark is derived from the sugar-cane-odoured bark, whilst Feather Top refers to the effect of the flowers and leaves in the canopy. Qualities of the timber, soft, open grained with a cedar like texture, gave rise to additional common names including Cedara and Atherton Pencil Cedar.

‘Rose Alder is usually sound and solid and makes very light and easy chopping for the fellers. The wood is light, weighing when air-dried from 36 to 42 lb. per cubic foot’ (575 kgs/m³). The timber has a rosy-chocolate or reddish-mauve hue, and is very light, porous and woolly fibred.
‘It has a quality of toughness, bores easily without splitting, is extremely easy to work, turns cleanly, and dresses with a fine finish revealing a close, even texture of attractive tone. It can also be easily stained and holds glue well.’

Information taken from a variety of historical sources, particularly Swain E K, The Timbers and Forest Products of Queensland, 1928.

Plant of the month 2/2022: Macropteranthes montana

Text and photos by John Elliott

Macropteranthes montana (Combretaceae) is officially classed as a rainforest species (RFK Code: 1087) but this unusual tree will only be found in a very limited range on skeletal soils in sparse open forest and woodland. One collection from the 1870’s describes the habitat as ‘desert’! Its range consists of a large tract inland from Cairns from the Walsh River in the north down to the Newcastle Range in the south.

Leichhardt is credited with having collected a sample at the Lynd River in May 1845, but the Type species is officially described as: Lumnitzera montana F.Muell., Fragm. 2: 149(1861), Type: Queensland, Newcastle Range, 1856, F. Mueller; holo: MEL; iso: K

Macropteranthes montana can survive long periods of drought, only bursting into life when conditions are more beneficial. So, it is not surprising to find the official RFK description as follows: Usually grows as a poorly formed tree which looks as though it is close to death, often flowers and fruits when at the shrub stage.

The bark of the trunk is blackish, hard, and rough. The leaves are very small and are held in tight spirals on short burr-like shoots along the entirety of the long tendril-like branches. Both the upper and lower leaf surfaces are densely clothed in pale prostrate silky hairs. And the flowers are small, tubed bracts, with long anthers, usually crimson but can be white.

This tree can most easily be seen on the Herberton-Petford Road between Emuford and Irvinebank, where it grows in small communities. Like many of these unusual slow growing and long-lived species it has a very fine and densely ringed timber, although the tree never reaches any millable size. It is known as Antique Wood, or Bonewood, referring I presume to its usual appearance of age and ‘dryness’.

By an unusual set of circumstances, I was given a potted specimen of this plant about 15 years ago. I was so certain that the relatively rich garden soil would quicken its demise that I resisted planting it out until about 3 years ago. To my great surprise it is now a very straggly bush of about two metres, enjoying the rainfall, and now filling out with a very creditable showing of white flowers.

Text and photos by John Elliott

Plant of the months 11/2021 – 1/2022: Haemodorum coccineum

With brilliant red-orange flowers appearing intermittently throughout the warmer half of the year, Haemodorum coccineum (Haemodoraceae) is a fitting selection to represent multiple months. (Our web editor was too busy to do a new one each month, sorry!)

Photo: Julia Hazel

Commonly called Bloodroot, due to the colour of its underground parts, this attractive local plant grows a clump of strap-like leaves, sometimes mistaken for a grass or Lomandra species until its distinctive flowers appear.

Photo: Julia Hazel

The leaves often die back during the dry season and then regrow from the underground rhizome at the start of the next wet season.

Haemodorum coccineum can be easily grown in Townsville gardens, preferring moist but well-drained soil and partial or full sun. It makes a fine show if planted in dense groups.

Indigenous Australians used various Haemadorum species for traditional medicinal purposes and extracted a high-quality red dye from the flowers and roots.

In 2006 Haemodorum coccineum was favourably assessed in a government-funded study into its potential as a new cut-flower species, but it seems there has been no substantial commercial production as yet.

Haemodorum coccineum on Castle Hill Photo: Russell Cumming

Plant of the month 10/2021: Dendrobium canaliculatum

Photo: Julia Hazel

For much of the year, tea tree orchids Dendrobium canaliculatum (Orchidaceae) are quite inconspicious in the wild. If you notice them at all, you might chuckle at their incongruous appearance, rather like dryish bunches of small onions arranged on the branches of wetland Melaleucas (photo below) and other trees.

Photo: Russell Cumming

However, from about September to November, these small epiphytes put out their beautiful, dainty flowers and remain in bloom for many weeks. At a time when not much else was flowering, tea tree orchids were the botanical highlight of a recent walk near Mutarnee (photo below).

Photo: Julia Hazel

Among orchid growers Dendrobium canaliculatum have a reputation of being difficult to grow, but they are hardy plants in their natural habitat.

The Australian Tropical Rainforest Orchids website provides botanical details and informs us this species has been renamed Cepobaculum canaliculatum although the synonym Dendrobium canaliculatum is still widely used.