''Abutilon julianae'' is a small

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

of the genus ''

Abutilon ''Abutilon'' is a large genus of flowering plants in the mallow family, Malvaceae. It is distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics Norfolk Island Norfolk Island (, ; Norfuk: ''Norf'k Ailen'') is an external territory of Australia located in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and New Caledonia, directly east of Australia's Evans Head and about from Lord Howe Island. Together with ...

and nearby Phillip Island.

History

It was first recorded on Norfolk Island in 1792 by convict artist John Doody, and on Phillip Island by Ferdinand Bauer in 1804-05 where he collected the type specimen. It appears not to have been recorded on Phillip Island after 1804-05 and on Norfolk Island was last seen about 1912. For more than seventy years it was considered

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

, apparently killed out by grazing stock. In the mid-1980s control of feral

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

s on nearby Phillip Island allowed plant seedlings to survive in accessible areas for the first time in more than one hundred years, and in 1985 some seedlings of ''Abutilon julianae'' were discovered. This was one of the first unexpected bonus benefits of rabbit control (and subsequent eradication). Plants must have survived in the few cliff-bound places inaccessible to both rabbits and people to provide the source of seed for the newly discovered plants. The species is now widely grown on Norfolk Island and natural regeneration on Phillip Island is growing well, though still very rare. As the only natural population (with fewer than 50 plants known in 2003) is on Phillip Island it is endemic to that island although it has been propagated and widely planted on Norfolk Island. It is listed as Critically Endangered under Australia's

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act The ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and cultu ...

References

julianae Flora of Norfolk Island Critically endangered flora of Australia Malvales of Australia Plants described in 1833 {{NorfolkIsland-stub