Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition

Alyxia oblongata Domin


Shrub (woody or herbaceous, 1-6 m tall)
Click/tap on images to enlarge
Flowers [not vouchered]. CC-BY J.L. Dowe
Leaves and fruit. © B. Gray
Leaves and fruit. © CSIRO
Leaves, fruit, cross section and seed. © W. T. Cooper
Scale bar 10mm. © CSIRO
Scale bar 10mm. © CSIRO
Cotyledon and 1st leaf stage, durian germination. © CSIRO
10th leaf stage. © CSIRO
Family

Domin, K. (1928) Biblioth. Bot. 89: 523. Type: Queensland, Waterfall Creek, Domin 7831; Holo: PR.

Common name

Chain Fruit; Prickly Alyxia; Prickly Lixy; Alyxia, Prickly

Stem

Usually flowers and fruits as a shrub about 1-3 m tall.

Leaves

Leaves and twigs produce a milky exudate when broken. Usually four leaves per whorl. Leaf blades about 2.5-3.5 x 0.8-1.1 cm, petioles about 0.1-0.5 cm long. Lateral veins about 10-20 on each side of the midrib, but very difficult to distinguish on fresh leaves. Leaves scabrous on the upper surface, smooth on the lower, margins minutely toothed, tips pungent pointed.

Flowers

Flowers about 9-17 mm diam. Sepals about 1.2-2 x 0.5-0.7 mm. Corolla tube about 9-11 mm long, glabrous on the outer surface, but pubescent around the anthers on the inner surface, lobes lanceolate, about 4.5-7.5 mm long. Anthers about 1.1-1.5 x 0.4-0.5 mm.

Fruit

Fruits sometimes moniliform. Seeds about 8-10 mm long. Embryo with cotyledons about as wide as the radicle.

Seedlings

First leaves sessile, arranged in a whorl of three or five. Margins serrate, apex aristate or spiny. Leaves and stems produce a milky exudate when cut or broken. Lateral veins scarcely branched. Stem and hypocotyl hairy. At the tenth leaf stage: leaves in whorls of four or five. Leaf blades tapering to a fine spine-like point at the apex. Margins finely toothed or clothed in short spiny hairs. Seed germination time 114 to 352 days.

Distribution and Ecology

Endemic to NEQ, found between the Big Tableland (Rossville) and the southern Atherton Tableland. Altitudinal range from 100-1000 m. Often grows in the drier rain forests on granite usually associated with Kauri Pine (Agathis robusta).

Synonyms
Alyxia ruscifolia subsp. major P.I.Forst., Australian Systematic Botany 5(5): 557(1992), Type: Queensland, Big Tableland road 15 43 S, 145 16 E, 4.Jul. 1989, P.I.Forster 5574 & M.C.Tucker; holo: BRI; iso: BISH, DNA, LAE, MO.
RFK Code
3454
Copyright © CSIRO 2020, all rights reserved.