Bertya cunninghamii | |
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Male flowers in Bungonia National Park | |
Scientific classification ![]() | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Clade: | Angiosperms |
Clade: | Eudicots |
Clade: | Rosids |
Order: | Malpighiales |
Family: | Euphorbiaceae |
Genus: | Bertya |
Species: | B. cunninghamii |
Binomial name | |
Bertya cunninghamii | |
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Occurrence data from the Australasian Virtual Herbarium |
Bertya cunninghamii, commonly known as wallaby bush, gooma bush or sticky Bertya, [2] is a species of flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is a monoecious shrub with many branches, linear leaves, flowers borne singly or in pairs in leaf axils, and oval or ellptic capsules with a mottled seed.
Bertya cunninghamii is a monoecious shrub that typically grows to a height of up to 1.5–3 m (4 ft 11 in – 9 ft 10 in) and has many sticky branches. Its leaves are linear, 8–27 mm (0.31–1.06 in) long and 0.6–0.9 mm (0.024–0.035 in) wide on a petiole up to 1 mm (0.039 in) long. The upper surface of the leaves is glabrous and green, the lower surface white and densely covered with star-shaped hairs. The flowers are borne singly or in pairs in leaf axils on a with narrowly egg-shaped to oblong or egg-shaped bracts 0.7–1.7 mm (0.028–0.067 in) long and 0.3–0.7 mm (0.012–0.028 in). Male flowers are sessile or on a short peduncle, each flower on a pedicel up to 0.4 mm (0.016 in) long with five yellowish-green egg-shaped, elliptic or oblong elliptic sepal lobes 2.6–3.7 mm (0.10–0.15 in) long and 1.5–2.5 mm (0.059–0.098 in) wide and 15 to 56 stamens. Female flowers are sessile or on a pedicel up to 2.5 mm (0.098 in) long, the five sepal lobes light green, 1.3–2.0 mm (0.051–0.079 in) long and 0.9–1.1 mm (0.035–0.043 in) wide. Female flowers usually have no petals, the ovary is glabrous and the style is 0.1–0.3 mm (0.0039–0.0118 in) long with usually three spreading red to maroon limbs 1.2–1.8 mm (0.047–0.071 in) long with two or three lobes 0.7–1.3 mm (0.028–0.051 in) long. Flowering time depends on subspecies, and the fruit is an oval or elliptic capsule 4.8–7.2 mm (0.19–0.28 in) long and 3.2–4.2 mm (0.13–0.17 in) wide, usually with a single oblong or elliptic, light brown seed mottled with dark brown and reddish-brown, 3.9–5.7 mm (0.15–0.22 in) long and 2.2–2.7 mm (0.087–0.106 in) wide with a yellowish-white caruncle. [2] [3]
Bertya cunninghamii was first formally described in 1845 by Jules Émile Planchon in Hooker's London Journal of Botany. [4] [5] The specific epithet (cunninghamii) honours Allan Cunningham who collected the type specimens. [4]
In 2002, David Halford and Rodney John Francis Henderson described three subspecies of B. cunninghamii in the journal Austrobaileya , and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census: [2]
Bertya cunninghamii subsp. pubiramula is listed as "endangered" under the Victorian Government Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 . [6]