Species profile—Rhodamnia angustifolia (narrow-leaved malletwood)
Classification
Plantae (plants) → Equisetopsida (land plants) → Myrtaceae → Rhodamnia angustifolia (narrow-leaved malletwood)
Sighting data
Species details
- Kingdom
- Plantae (plants)
- Class
- Equisetopsida (land plants)
- Family
- Myrtaceae
- Scientific name
- Rhodamnia angustifolia N.Snow & Guymer
- Common name
- narrow-leaved malletwood
- WildNet taxon ID
- 22496
- Nature Conservation Act 1992 (NCA) status
- CR
- Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC) status
- Critically endangered
- Conservation significant
- Yes
- Confidential
- No
- Endemicity
- Native
- Pest status
- Nil
- Short Notes
- status annotated by author
- Description
- Rhodamnia angustifolia is a single or multi-stemmed tree from 4 to 10 m tall. The bark of the main trunk is smooth but furrowed and somewhat flaking in small angular patches. The leaves are discolorous and are trinerved, mostly narrowly elliptic but occasionally narrowly obovate or falcate, 20 to 70 (-85)mm long by (3-)5 to 12 (-15)mm wide, they are cuneate at the base and obtuse to acute at the apex with flat margins. The adaxial surface is sparsely sericeous becoming glabrous with the oil glands scattered to dense, but usually invisible to the naked eye. The abaxial surface is very shortly and densely tomentose, the lateral, tertiary and intramarginal veins usually prominent. The petioles are 2.5 to 4 mm long and are channelled. The inflorescence is a cluster of 2 to 7 flowers on short shoots less than 1 mm long in the axils of the leaves or leaf scars. The peduncles are rigid and up to 1.5 mm long and shortly sericeous. There are 4 sepals which are distinct in bud, the lobes are free, 0.3 to 0.5 mm long, broadly ovate with the apex rounded to obtuse, sparsely short sericeous above and below, persistent on the fruit. There are 4 petals, alternating with the sepals, yellowish-white in colour and about 2.5 mm long by 3 mm wide, broadly ovate to oblate with a rounded apex, glabrous below. There are 65 to 75 multiseriate stamens, folded centrewards in bud, the filaments 2 to 4 mm long. The style is 4.5 to 5 mm long and is mostly straight. The fruit is a berry that is sub-globose to globose, rounded at the base, 3 to 5 mm long by 4 to 6 mm wide, glabrous or glabrescent, yellowish orange with some red when fresh but increasingly red upon drying. The fruit has 1 or 2 (-4) seeds that are globose to suborbicular to somewhat reniform, smooth and light brown in colour.
With its shortly and densely tomentose lower leaf surfaces and sparse to dense oil glands in the leaves, R. angustifolia shows affinities with R. dumicola, R. whiteana and R. ostata. However its narrowly elliptic leaves immediately distinguish it from these species. (Snow and Guymer, 1999). - Map
- View Map
- Distribution
- Occurs at the head of Cedar Creek along a single ridgetop and subtending slopes in the Wietalaba National Park (previously State Forest 583), 45 km south of Gladstone (Queensland Herbarium 2012).
- Distributional limits
- -23.8957273, 151.2122222
-24.2883334, 151.2575644 - Range derivation
- Range derived from extent of the taxon's verified records
- Habitat
- The species grows in microphyll vineforest with Backhousia subargentea, Barklya syringifolia, Archidendropsis thozetiana, Backhousia kingii, Sterculia quadrifida, Mallotus philippensis, Croton stigmatosus and Araucaria cunninghamii as the dominant tree species. The substrate is reddish or brown loam from mudstones of Muncon volcanics. The elevation range is from 200 to 560 metres (Snow and Guymer, 1999)
- Reproduction
- Flowering material is known only from the type specimen, collected in November, but given the apparently good condition of abundant young bud material, flowering almost certainly extends into December. Fruiting period confirmed only for January by a single specimen, but likely to begin as early as late November or early December. (Snow and Guymer, 1999)
- Threatening processes
- The species is threatened by weeds and by the recently introduced alien pathogen myrtle rust (Puccinia psidii). Plants of this species in cultivation in Brisbane are known to be highly susceptible to myrtle rust infection.
- Status notes
- Rhodamnia angustifolia is listed as Endangered under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992
- References
- Queensland Herbarium (2012). Specimen label information. Queensland Herbarium. Accessed 14/02/2012.
Snow, N. and Guymer, G.P. (1999). Austrobaileya 5 (3): 421-426. - Profile author
- Ronald Booth (09/07/2012)
Other resources
- Species Profile and Threats Database (SPRAT)
- The Australasian Virtual Herbarium (AVH)
- Atlas of Living Australia
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=22496.
This information is sourced from the WildNet database managed by the Queensland Department of Environment and Science.
