Meiogyne trichocarpa (Jessup) D.C.Thomas & R.M.K.Saunders

Xue, B., Thomas, D.C., Chaowasku, T., Johnson, D.M. & Saunders, R.M.K. (2014) Systematic Botany 39(2): 401.

Grows into a small tree but often flowers and fruits as a shrub.

Leaf bearing twigs glabrous but marked by numerous lenticels. Twig bark strong and fibrous when stripped. Oak grain visible in transverse sections of the twigs. Leaf blades 5-11.5 x 3-5 cm, lateral veins not very obvious. Petioles about 0.3-0.7 cm long, grooved on the upper surface. Lateral veins forming loops inside the blade margin.

Petals about 10 mm long, thick and fleshy. Ovaries 8-10 per flower, each clothed in appressed golden hairs. Ovules about four per ovary.

Fruiting carpels 5-10 per fruit, each about 20-40 mm long, sausage-shaped and clothed in short velvety hairs. Seeds 1-5 per carpel, each about 9-13 x 8-10 mm long, surface marked by a line completely encircling the seed. Endosperm ruminate to the centre of the seed. Embryo small, about 1-2.5 mm long. Cotyledons about as wide as the elongated radicle.

First pair of leaves +/- ovate to elliptic, apex obtuse, base +/- cuneate, shortly petiolate. Midrib hairy on both the upper and lower surfaces of the leaf blade, blades otherwise glabrous. Oil dots visible with a lens. At the tenth leaf stage: leaves lanceolate to elliptic, shortly petiolate. Stems clothed in dark brown hairs and pale lenticels. Seed germination time 235 to 537 days.

Endemic to CYP and NEQ. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 200 m. Grows in beach forest, monsoon forest and the drier types of rain forest on a variety of soil types.

Food plant for the larval stages of the Green Spotted Triangle Butterfly. Sankowsky & Neilsen (2000).

Meiogyne cylindrocarpa subsp. trichocarpa Jessup, Flora of Australia 2: 450 (2007). Type: Queensland, 8 km. past Pascoe Riv. crossing on the road to Portland Roads, 14 July 1993, P.I. Forster PIF 13600. Holo: BRI. Polyaulax sp. (Tingle Scrub DGF 2676).   Meiogyne sp. Tingle Scrub ( D.G. Fell + DGF 2676), Names Distribution Queensland Plants, Algae, Lichens. 2002: 16().