Alexgeorgea

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Alexgeorgea
Alexgeorgea buried flowers.jpg
Male Alexgeorgea flowers are in the background while only the three stigmas of a female flower are above ground.
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Clade: Commelinids
Order: Poales
Family: Restionaceae
Genus: Alexgeorgea
Carlquist
Species

Alexgeorgea is a genus of three plant species found in Western Australia belonging to the family Restionaceae named in honour of the botanist Alex George in 1976. [1] The flowers of the female and large nut-like fruit are completely underground except for the stigmas, which extend out of the ground as 3 purple or red threads. [2]

Contents

Botanical history

The genus Alexgeorgea was first discovered by Sherwin Carlquist on 2 September 1974 when he found a population of A. subterranea on the Cockleshell Gully road north of Jurien Bay in Western Australia. At first, Carlquist, an American botanist and professor at Claremont Graduate University doing field work in Western Australia, could only locate male plants of what he immediately identified as a restionaceous species. In order to identify species in the Restionaceae, it is important to gather material of both male and female flowers, so Carlquist continued to search and only then noticed "purple thread-like structures emerging from the sand," which were the ephemeral styles of the mostly subterranean female flowers. In his original description of the new genus in a 1976 volume of the Australian Journal of Botany , Carlquist notes his discovery may have not occurred if he had not seen the female flowers at anthesis due to the short-lived nature of the thread-like styles. [1]

Carlquist originally described two species in the genus, A. subterranea and A. arenicola (the species epithet arenicola means "a dweller on sand" [3] ). [1] Ten year later in April 1986, Australian botanists Lawrence Alexander Sidney Johnson and Barbara G. Briggs, both of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, published a short article in the journal Telopea that recognized a species previously known as Restio nitens as a species better fitting the description of Alexgeorgea. [4] Restio nitens was originally described by Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck in 1848 as having above ground dehiscent fruits, unlike the below ground flowers and fruit of Alexgeorgea, though Carlquist had noted that R. nitens and his newly described A. arenicola were otherwise identical. Johnson examined the herbarium specimens labeled as R. nitens and discovered that the alleged above ground fruits were actually malformations possibly resulting from smut fungus. Both Johnson & Briggs and Carlquist independently published the new combination, moving the species R. nitens to the genus Alexgeorgea as A. nitens. In Carlquist's proposal, he identified A. arenicola a synonym of the older name A. nitens, which had priority. [4] [5] Johnson and Briggs published their description of A. nitens in the journal Telopea on April 24, preceding Carlquist's publication in the journal Aliso by only 5 days, thus making Carlquist's combination (A. nitens (Nees) Carlquist) an isonym of Johnson and Briggs's combination (A. nitens (Nees) L.A.S.Johnson & B.G.Briggs). [6] The third species, A. ganopoda , was described by Johnson and Briggs in 1990. [2]

Related Research Articles

Restionaceae Family of flowering plants

The Restionaceae, also called restiads and restios, are a family of flowering plants native to the Southern Hemisphere; they vary from a few centimeters to 3 meters in height. Following the APG IV (2016): the family now includes the former families Anarthriaceae, Centrolepidaceae and Lyginiaceae, and as such includes 51 genera with 572 known species. Based on evidence from fossil pollens, the Restionaceae likely originated more than 65 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period, when the southern continents were still part of Gondwana.

<i>Xylomelum</i> Genus of plants in the family Proteaceae native to Australia

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<i>Stylidium</i> Genus of plants

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Alex George (botanist) Australian botanist

Alexander Segger George is a Western Australian botanist. He is the authority on the plant genera Banksia and Dryandra. The "bizarre" Restionaceae genus Alexgeorgea was named in his honour in 1976.

<i>Conospermum</i> Genus of plants in the family Proteaceae

Conospermum is a genus of about 50 species in the family Proteaceae that are endemic to Australia. Members of the genus are known as smokebushes - from a distance, their wispy heads of blue or grey flowers resemble puffs of smoke. They have an unusual pollination method that sometimes leads to the death of visiting insects. They are found in all Australian states, though most occur only in Western Australia. Smokebushes are rarely cultivated, though the flowers of several Western Australian species are harvested for the cut flower industry.

<i>Telopea truncata</i> Shrub in the family Proteaceae endemic to Tasmania

Telopea truncata, commonly known as the Tasmanian waratah, is a plant in the family Proteaceae. It is endemic to Tasmania where it is found on moist acidic soils at altitudes of 600 to 1200 m (2000–4000 ft). Telopea truncata is a component of alpine eucalypt forest, rainforest and scrub communities. It grows as a multistemmed shrub to a height of 3 metres (10 ft), or occasionally as a small tree to 10 m (35 ft) high, with red flower heads, known as inflorescences, appearing over the Tasmanian summer and bearing 10 to 35 individual flowers. Yellow-flowered forms are occasionally seen, but do not form a population distinct from the rest of the species.

<i>Apodasmia</i> (plant) Genus of flowering plants

Apodasmia is a group of plants in the Restionaceae described as a genus in 1998. It is native to Australia, New Zealand, and Chile.

Sherwin Carlquist American botanist (1930–2021)

Sherwin John Carlquist FMLS was an American botanist and photographer.

Frederick William Humphreys was an Australian government official and an amateur photographer and botanist whose work culminated in the posthumous publication of The Banksia Book, a book on the flowering plant genus Banksia. He discovered Banksia grossa in the Stirling Range in 1967.

<i>Stylidium humphreysii</i> Species of flowering plant

Stylidium humphreysii is a species of trigger plant endemic to desert regions of Western Australia. American botanist Sherwin Carlquist named the species after West Australian amateur botanist Fred Humphreys.

<i>Baloskion tetraphyllum</i> Species of flowering plant

Baloskion tetraphyllum is a rush-like plant in the family Restionaceae. Common names include tassel rope-rush, plume rush and Australian reed.

<i>Meeboldina</i> Genus of flowering plants

Meeboldina is a plant genus in the family Restionaceae, described as a genus in 1943. It is named for the botanical collector Alfred Meebold.

Stylidium arenicola is a species of dicotyledon plant in the genus Stylidium. It was described in 1969 by Sherwin Carlquist.

Donald Frederick Blaxell, is an Australian botanist, botanical collector and taxonomist.

<i>Desmocladus flexuosus</i> Species of flowering plant

Desmocladus flexuosus is a rhizatomous, sedge-like herb in the Restionaceae family, endemic to south-west Western Australia.

Baloskion longipes, common name dense cordrush, is a dioecious perennial herb in the Restionaceae family, found in southeastern New South Wales.

<i>Chordifex hookeri</i> Species of flowering plant

Chordifex hookeri is commonly known as woolly buttonrush or cord-rush. It is a rush species of the genus Chordifex in the family Restionaceae. The species is endemic to Tasmania.

<i>Chordifex laxus</i> Species of flowering plant

Chordifex laxus is a rush species of the genus Chordifex in the family Restionaceae. It is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia.

Leptocarpus laxus is a rush species of the genus Leptocarpus in the family Restionaceae. It is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia.

<i>Tremulina tremula</i> Species of plant

Tremulina tremula is a plant in the Restionaceae family, found in the south-west of Western Australia.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Carlquist, Sherwin. 1976. Alexgeorgea, a bizarre new genus of Restionaceae from Western Australia. Australian Journal of Botany 24(2): 281-295. doi:10.1071/BT9760281
  2. 1 2 Briggs, Barbara G., L.A.S. Johnson, and Siegfried L. Krauss. 1990. The species of Alexgeorgea, a Western Australian genus of the Restionaceae. Australian Systematic Botany 3(4): 751-758. doi:10.1071/SB9900751
  3. ↑ Stearn, William T. 2004. Botanical Latin. 4th edition. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, Inc. p. 209. ISBN   978-0-7153-1643-6
  4. 1 2 Johnson, L.A.S., and Barbara G. Briggs. 1986. Alexgeorgea nitens, a new combination in Restionaceae. Telopea, 2(6): 781-782.doi:10.7751/telopea19864615
  5. ↑ Carlquist, Sherwin. 1986. Nomenclatural note. Aliso, 11(2): 158.
  6. ↑ "Alexgeorgea nitens". International Plant Names Index (IPNI). Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 15 March 2011. Retrieved 15 March 2011.
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