Hylandia dockrillii
| Hylandia dockrillii | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Hylandia | ||||||||||||
| Airy Shaw | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Hylandia dockrillii | ||||||||||||
| Airy Shaw |
Hylandia dockrillii (common name Blushwood Tree) is the only species of the plant genus Hylandia within the milkweed family(Euphorbiaceae). It occurs in the Australian rainforest.
description
Appearance and leaf
Hylandia dockrillii grows as a tree and reaches heights of up to 25 meters. The bark is dark brown. The branches are pliable but difficult to break. Sticky milky juice escapes from freshly cut branches . The pith of older branches is red. While the first leaves are developing, the stem axis is thickened and somewhat bottle-shaped on the soil surface and just below it.
The leaves are divided into a petiole and a leaf blade. The petiole is hairy in the upper area. From the tenth leaf onwards, the simple leaf blades are obovate with a length of 8 to 20 centimeters and a width of 3.5 to 9.5 centimeters with a wedge-shaped blade base and a pointed upper end. The midrib and main lateral nerves are raised on the upper side of the leaf. Often there are one or two raised glands at the transition from leaf blade to petiole on the top of the leaf. The early falling stipules are relatively small, triangular and hairy.
Flower, fruit and seeds
The unisexual flowers have a double flower envelope . The outer perimeter of the inflorescence is hairy rust-colored and downy. The sepals are 7 to 8 millimeters long. The petals are 10 to 12 millimeters long. The disc consists of five spherical glands. The ovary is densely hairy. The scar is more or less leaf-like.
The fruit, which is rust-colored until ripe, is 20 to 30 millimeters in length and 35 to 45 millimeters in diameter, spherical, flattened on the top and sides, more or less bilobed and longitudinally ribbed. The seeds are more or less spherical with a diameter of 12 to 15 millimeters. The 1 to 1.5 millimeter thick seed coat (testa) is hard and horn-like. The seeds are eaten by rats native to Australia.
Occurrence
Hylandia dockrillii is endemic to northeast Queensland . It thrives at altitudes of 400 to 1100 meters in the well-developed rainforest on different locations.
literature
- Wendy Cooper, William Cooper: Australian Rainforest Fruits. A field guide. Color plates, Line Art, Maps, Csiro Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-0-643-10784-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e data sheet of Hylandia dockrillii with detailed photos at Australian Tropical Rainforests Plants . Last accessed on November 5, 2014
- ↑ Data sheet of Hylandia dockrillii at Australian Tropical Rainforests Plants . Retrieved November 4, 2014