Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition

Pleioluma singuliflora (C.T.White & W.D.Francis) Swenson


Shrub (woody or herbaceous, 1-6 m tall)
Tree
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Scale bar 10mm. © CSIRO
Cotyledon stage, epigeal germination. © CSIRO
10th leaf stage. © CSIRO
Family

Swenson, U. et al (2013) Taxon 62(4): 765.

Common name

Lewis Coondoo

Stem

Seldom exceeding 30 cm dbh. Exudate slow and meagre, mainly in the inner blaze but quite conspicuous. A cream or pale brown layer generally visible between the subrhytidome layer and the outer blaze. Pale brown, brittle stripes in the inner blaze.

Leaves

Petioles and twigs produce a milky exudate. Leaf blades about 2.5-12 x 1.3-6 cm. Lateral veins curving inside the blade margin but not forming definite loops. Terminal buds and young shoots clothed in short, prostrate, brown hairs.

Flowers

Sepals broadly ovate, sagittate or orbicular, about 5-5.5 x 4-4.5 mm, greyish puberulous on the outer surface, glabrescent or ferruginously sericeous on the inner surface. Corolla about 7-8 mm long. Stamens inserted about the middle of the corolla, filaments about 1.5 mm long, anthers about 1.5 mm long. Staminodes spathulate-oblong or linear, about 2-2.5 mm long. Ovary + style about 7-8 mm long, greyish sericeous. Style difficult to distinguish from the ovary.

Fruit

Fruits +/- fusiform, about 25-30 x 10 mm, style persistent, about 8 mm long. Seed, usually one per fruit, about 16 x 7 x 4 mm. Testa hard and woody, hilum about 0.5-1 mm wide and about 1/2 the length of the seed.

Seedlings

Cotyledons ovate, about 31-41 x 10-12 mm. First pair of leaves elliptic, sparsely clothed in brown prostrate hairs. At the tenth leaf stage: terminal bud clothed in very fine prostrate pale hairs. Stem clothed in very fine prostrate brown hairs. Seed germination time 36 days.

Distribution and Ecology

Endemic to NEQ, restricted to the higher mountains between Thornton Peak and Mt Bartle Frere. Altitudinal range from 450-1550 m. Grows in mountain rain forest often in stunted rain forest on windswept ridges.

Synonyms

Pouteria singuliflora (C.T.White & W.D.Francis) Baehni, Candollea 9: 316 (1942). Planchonella singuliflora (C.T.White & W.D.Francis) P.Royen, Blumea 8: 345 (1955). Beccariella singuliflora (C.T.White & W.D.Francis) Swenson, Bartish & MunzingerCladistics 23: 221 (2007).   Sideroxylon singuliflorum C.T.White & W.D.Francis, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland 37: 161 (1926), Type: Bellenden Ker, near the summit, C.T. White, January, 1923.

RFK Code
706
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