| Monotoca glauca | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Asterids |
| Order: | Ericales |
| Family: | Ericaceae |
| Genus: | Monotoca |
| Species: | M. glauca |
| Binomial name | |
| Monotoca glauca | |
Monotoca glauca, known as goldy wood, is a heath family shrub endemic to Tasmania, Australia and is one of 17 described Monotoca species. It is a widespread and abundant understory species found on the margins of wet eucalypt forests and logged areas.
Monotoca glauca is an evergreen, densely branched shrub or small tree with slender branches, often 2–3 m tall. Leaves are similar to Cyathodes glauca , however are not in whorls. Venation tends to be spreading or palmate, characteristic of the genus. [1] Leaves are elliptic with a point, and are usually 1.5 cm long, with a yellowish-green, glabrous adaxial surface, and glaucous abaxial surface. Flowers are pentamerous, white and solitary in auxiliary spikes. [2] M. glauca is usually hermaphroditic or sometimes unisexual by abortion of pollen or ovules. [3] The corolla tube is short with spreading lobes. Flowering occurs in January and February. [4] Fruit is an ovoid drupe, green when mature and 3mm in diameter.
Monotoca elliptica is superficially very similar, but can be distinguished by its terminal spikes, and its leaves tend to be wider and less linear. [2]
Monotoca glauca is a common understory shrub at the edges of wet eucalypt forests, mixed forest, buttongrass moorlands and in logged areas, found more commonly west of Tyler's Line.
Monotoca glauca is hardy to most frosts and light snowfalls, and tolerates moist, shady sites, and is susceptible to Phytophthora cinnamomi. It is phosphorus intolerant, but may be found on fertile, loam, poor and well drained soils. [4]
Monotoca glauca was first formally described in 1805 by Jacques Labillardière who gave it the name Styphelia glauca. [5] It was renamed by English botanist George Claridge Druce who gave it its current binomial name in 1917. [6]
"Glauca" comes from the Greek word glaukos meaning “gleaming, silvery”. In botanical terms, glaucous refers to the greyish, bluish or whitish waxy coating or bloom that is easily rubbed off.
Monotoca glauca is an ideal hedging plant, and may be grown from cuttings or seed but requires good drainage and part to full sun. [2] [4] Monotoca species are particularly difficult to germinate from seeds, and the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens seedbank has been making a concerted effort to resolve germination requirements. [7]
Lomatia tasmanica, commonly known as King's lomatia, is a shrub of the family Proteaceae native to Tasmania. Growing up to 8 metres (26 ft) tall, the plant has shiny green pinnate (lobed) leaves and bears red flowers in the summer, but yields neither fruit nor seeds. King's lomatia is unusual because all of the remaining plants are genetically identical clones. Because it has three sets of chromosomes and is therefore sterile, reproduction occurs only vegetatively: when a branch falls, that branch grows new roots, establishing a new plant that is genetically identical to its parent.
Arctostaphylos glauca is a species of manzanita known by the common name bigberry manzanita. It is native to California and Baja California, where it grows in the chaparral and woodland of coastal and inland hills.
Gaultheria hispida, commonly known as the copperleaf snowberry, is an endemic eudicot of Tasmania, Australia. It is an erect multi-branched shrub, that can be found in wet forests and alpine woodlands. Its berries appear snowy white and leaves are tipped with a copper tinge, hence the common name.
Billardiera longiflora, the purple apple-berry, is a small Australian vine found in cool, moist forests from southern New South Wales to Tasmania, where it is native. It was described by French botanist Jacques Labillardière in 1805. The slender leafed vine has greenish-yellow flowers and shiny purple fruit. The fruit is edible.
Anopterus glandulosus, commonly known as native laurel or Tasmanian laurel, is a species of shrub or small tree in the family Escalloniaceae. Endemic to south and southwestern Tasmania, A. glandulosus is widespread in the moist understoreys of Tasmanian temperate rainforests and wet sclerophyll forests from sea level to mountainous regions below 1,200 metres (3,937 ft) above sea level.
Olearia phlogopappa commonly known as the dusty daisy-bush or alpine daisy-bush is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae that is commonly found in eastern New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. It is a small shrub with greyish-green foliage, daisy-like flowers in white, pink or mauve that can be seen from spring to late summer.
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.
Gahnia grandis is a tussock-forming perennial plant found in southeastern mainland Australia and Tasmania.
Orites revolutus , also known as narrow-leaf orites, is a Tasmanian endemic plant species in the family Proteaceae. Scottish botanist Robert Brown formally described the species in Transactions of the Linnean Society of London in 1810 from a specimen collected at Lake St Clair. Abundant in alpine and subalpine heath, it is a small to medium shrub 0.5 to 1.5 m tall, with relatively small, blunt leaves with strongly revolute margins. The white flowers grow on terminal spikes during summer. Being proteaceaous, O. revolutus is likely to provide a substantial food source for nectivorous animal species within its range.
Pomaderris apetala is a small tree or large shrub from the family Rhamnaceae, growing in Victoria, New Zealand and Tasmania. Two subspecies have been recognised:
Cyathodes glauca, the purple cheeseberry, is a woody shrub or small tree common in Tasmania, Australia. It belongs to the 'heath' family, Ericaceae. 'Heath' refers to open, shrub-like communities which survive on well-drained and poor quality soils.
Cenarrhenes is a monytypic genus in the family Proteaceae containing the single species Cenarrhenes nitida, known as the Port Arthur plum or native plum. Cenarrhenes nitida is an evergreen shrub to small tree endemic to the rainforests and scrublands of western Tasmania. It bears white flowers in late spring followed by the development of fleshy fruit.
Monotoca scoparia, commonly known as prickly broom heath, is a widespread native species across south-eastern Australia. Monotoca scoparia was formerly in the family Epacridaceae but now belongs to the family Ericaceae. Monotoca is an endemic Australian genus with 17 described species occurring in all states.
Dry sclerophyll forests occur throughout northern and eastern Tasmania. Characterised by the population of hard-leafed (sclerophyll) and often spiky, drought-adapted plants, dry sclerophyll forests are found in regions of where annual rainfall is below 1000m.
Eucalyptus pulchella, commonly known as the white peppermint or narrow-leaved peppermint, is a species of small to medium-sized tree that is endemic to Tasmania. it has smooth bark, sometimes with rough fibrous bark on older trees, linear leaves, flower buds in groups of nine to twenty or more, white flowers and cup-shaped to shortened spherical fruit.
Hakea lissosperma, commonly known as needle bush and mountain needlewood, is a species of Hakea native to parts of south eastern Australia.
Eucalyptus urnigera, commonly known as urn tree, is a species of small to medium-sized tree that is endemic to Tasmania. It has smooth bark, lance-shaped or elliptical leaves, flower buds in groups of three, white flowers and urn-shaped fruit.
Orites diversifolia (=diversifolius), commonly known as variable orites, is a member of the family Proteaceae and is endemic to Tasmania. The common name stems from the variable form of the leaves, which range from entire and linear to serrated and ovate. It is a common shrub in lowland rainforest, subalpine woodland and scrub.
Cotula alpina, also known as the alpine cotula, is a perennial herb in the family Asteraceae. It is a small flowering plant that forms ground covering mats and is well adapted to alpine environments.
Olearia pinifolia is a spiky shrub of the Asteraceae family, endemic to the mountains of Tasmania. It is commonly known as the Pine-leafed Daisy-bush. This species is endemic to Tasmania, Australia and is found in alpine and sub-alpine regions on mountains throughout Tasmania, where it grows as a shrub to small tree. It flowers during spring - early summer.