Species profile—Bertya pedicellata
Classification
Plantae (plants) → Equisetopsida (land plants) → Euphorbiaceae → Bertya pedicellata
Sighting data
Species details
- Kingdom
- Plantae (plants)
- Class
- Equisetopsida (land plants)
- Family
- Euphorbiaceae
- Scientific name
- Bertya pedicellata F.Muell.
- WildNet taxon ID
- 11322
- Nature Conservation Act 1992 (NCA) status
- Near threatened
- Conservation significant
- Yes
- Confidential
- No
- Endemicity
- Native
- Pest status
- Nil
- Description
- Bertya pedicellata is an extensively branched monoecious shrub, growing up to 6 m tall. The young shoots, leaves and flowers are thinly viscid. The branchlets are rugose, terete with a moderately dense indumentum of sessile, stellate, white hairs. The branchlets become glabrous with age. The leaves are petiolate, spirally alternate or opposite, and horizontally spread. The petiole is 1.5 to 5.2 mm long, with a sparse stellate-pubescent indumentum up to 0.1 mm thick. The lamina is linear-elliptic, linear obovate or sometimes linear, 40 to 92 mm long and 1.6 to 10 mm wide. The adaxial surface is green, sparsely hairy with stellate hairs, becoming glabrous with age. The abaxial surface is white, densely hairy with stellate hairs which may be sessile. The leaves have recurved margins, the apex is acute or obtuse, apiculate and the base is attenuate. The midvein is impressed adaxially, and on the abaxial surface the midvein is raised and angular with stellate hairs. Marginal glands are present at the base of the lamina. The inflorescences occur as a single flower or umbelliform with 2 flowers. The male flowers are sessile, with five (rarely 4 or 6) sepals lobes which are yellow-green coloured, elliptic or ovate-elliptic, 4.5 to 5.5 mm long and 3 to 4.2 mm wide with 56 to 70 stamens, and rudimentary petals. The female flowers are pedicellate, with a stem which is 1.5 to 3 mm long when in flower and up to 4 mm long when in fruit with 5 sepal lobes (rarely 5) which are light green in colour, the petals are rudimentary. The capsule is narrowly ellipsoid or narrowly ovoid, 8.5 to 11.3 mm long by 4.7 to 5.2 mm across, glabrous or with scattered stellate hairs, usually 1-seeded. The seeds are obloid or obloid-ellipsoid, 5.1 to 5.8 mm long by 3.2 to 3.6 mm wide and 2.8 to 3.1 mm across, light brown and mottled with dark brown and black, with a fleshy creamy-white caruncle.
B. pedicellata is characterized by the more or less sessile stellate hairs on the branchlets, the opposite as well as alternate arrangement of its leaves, the mostly linear-elliptic or linear-obovate leaf lamina which are glabrescent and smooth on the upper surface, and its long-stemmed female flowers (Halford and Henderson 2002). - Distribution
- Bertya pedicellata is confined to central and south-east Queensland, from near Aramac eastwards to Rockhampton and south to near Biggenden with an isolated record from the Warwick district. The species has been recorded in Peak Range National Park and Allies Creek State Forest (Halford and Henderson, 2002; Queensland Herbarium, 2012).
- Distributional limits
- -21.8800083, 145.7594726
-28.2900781, 151.987075 - Range derivation
- Range derived from extent of the taxon's verified records
- Habitat
- Bertya pedicellata has been recorded as growing on rocky hillsides in eucalypt forest or woodland, Acacia woodland or shrubland and open heathland or vine thicket communities. Soils are recorded mostly as skeletal to shallow sandy, sandy clay or clay loams overlaying rhyolite, trachyte or sandstone substrates. Associated species include Corymbia trachyphloia, Dodonaea filifolia, Acacia catenulata, A. curvinervia, A. shirleyi, A. rhodoxylon, A. sparsiflora, E. crebra, Acacia harpophylla and E. decorticans (Queensland Herbarium, 2012).
- Reproduction
- Little is known about the reproductive biology of B. pedicellata. Flowers have been recorded from March to November and fruits from August to November (Halford and Henderson, 2002; Queensland Herbarium, 2012).
- Threatening processes
- Potential threatening processes to B. pedicellata include land clearing, either directly by removal of the species or indirectly through the loss of potential habitat, habitat disturbance by timber harvesting and inappropriate fire regimes (Wang, 1995).
- Status notes
- Bertya pedicellata is listed as Near Threatened under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992
- Management documents
- Wang, J. (1995). Bertya pedicellata Species Management Profile, Department of Natural Resources, Queensland.
- Management recommendations
- Management of B. pedicellata and its habitat within State forests or timber reserves includes establishment of a protective buffer (0.25 ha) that excludes timber harvesting and clearing with all B. pedicellata at least 25 m inside the protective buffer (Wang, 1995).
- Notes
- Occurs in the following Queensland pastoral districts: Burnett, Leichhardt, Mitchell, Moreton, Port Curtis, South Kennedy (Bostock and Holland, 2010).
The leaf laminas on B. pedicellata can vary in width depending on the moisture available to the plant at any particular site. Plants on dry skeletal soil tend to have a large proportion of narrow leaf laminas with margins recurved or revolute to some extent and sometimes even to the midrib. Whereas plants of sloping sites and sandy loam tend to have leaf laminas flatter and broader (Halford and Henderson 2002). There is an unusual population of B. pedicellata near Warwick Queensland, Sands 3 (BRI) which does not fit the typical example of the species. This population has extremely narrow leaf blades. It is suggested that this population warrants further study (Halford and Henderson, 2002). - References
- Bostock, P.D. and Holland, A.E. (eds) (2010). Census of the Queensland Flora 2010. Queensland Herbarium, Department of Environment and Resource Management, Brisbane.
Halford, D.A. and Henderson, R.J.F. (2002). Studies in Euphorbiaceae A.L.Juss. sens. lat. 3. A revision of Bertya Planch. (Ricinocarpeae Mull.Arg., Bertyinae Mull.Arg.). Austrobaileya 6 (2): 221-223.
Queensland Herbarium (2012). Specimen label information. Queensland Herbarium. Accessed 19/01/2012.
Wang, J. (1995). Bertya pedicellata Species Management Profile. Department of Natural Resources, Brisbane. - Profile author
- Lynise Wearne (18/01/2012)
Other resources
Data source
This profile data is sourced from the QLD Wildlife Data API using the Get species by ID function used under CC-By 4.0.
https://apps.des.qld.gov.au/species/?op=getspeciesbyid&taxonid=11322.
This information is sourced from the WildNet database managed by the Queensland Department of Environment and Science.
