''Dendrocnide cordifolia'', commonly known as the stinging tree, is a plant in the nettle family Urticaceae

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the

Atherton Tablelands The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. The principal river flowing across the plateau is the Barron River. It was dammed to form an irrigation reservoir named Lake Tinar ...

, south west of

Cairns Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

. Contact with the plant (like many others in the family) results in a painful sting, however the intensity and duration of the pain from this plant is extreme.

Description

''D. cordifolia'' is a straggly

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

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 ...

growing up to high, and the entire plant is covered with stinging hairs. It has large

cordate Cordate is an adjective meaning 'heart-shaped' and is most typically used for: * Cordate (leaf shape), in plants * Cordate axe, a prehistoric stone tool See also * Chordate A chordate () is an animal of the phylum Chordata (). All chordat ...

leaves measuring up to long by wide, with toothed margins and petioles (leaf stems) almost as long as the leaf blade itself. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

s are up to long and bisexual, i.e. consisting of both staminate (functionally male) and

pistillate Gynoecium (; ) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ''pistils'' ...

(functionally female) flowers. The flowers are quite small, about wide, and the fruits (which are

achene An achene (; ), also sometimes called akene and occasionally achenium or achenocarp, is a type of simple dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. Achenes are monocarpellate (formed from one carpel) and indehiscent (they do not ope ...

s) are about 1.5 mm long. The achenes are partly surrounded by a white, globular, fleshy body derived from the swollen

pedicel Pedicle or pedicel may refer to: Human anatomy *Pedicle of vertebral arch, the segment between the transverse process and the vertebral body, and is often used as a radiographic marker and entry point in vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty procedures ...

and has the appearance of a small white raspberry.

Taxonomy

This species was first described as ''Laportea cordifolia'' in 1959 by the Australian

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

Lindsay Stuart Smith Lindsay Stuart Smith (27 November 1917 – 12 September 1970) was an Australian botanist, naturalist and public servant. Early years Lindsay Smith was born in Bundaberg in Queensland and attended Bundaberg South State School and later Bundaber ...

from a specimen he collected in 1957 near Atherton, Queensland, and was published in the journal ''

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland ''Proceedings of The Royal Society of Queensland'' is a multidisciplinary scientific journal published by The Royal Society of Queensland The Royal Society of Queensland was formed in Queensland, Australia in 1884 from the Queensland Philo ...

''. In 1969 the

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

an botanist

Wee-Lek Chew Wee-Lek Chew (; born 1932) is a Singaporean-born botanist. Career Chew was born in Singapore in 1932. He did his B.S. in botany at the University of Malaya under Richard Eric Holttum, and following his graduation in 1956 he began working at the ...

, in his paper titled ''Laportia and Allied Genera'', merged ''L. cordifolia'' with '' Dendrocnide cordata'' and for almost 30 years that remained the status quo. However, in 1997, the Australian botanists Betsy Jackes and Marina Hurley showed that there were errors in Chew's work, and published a paper in Austrobaileya which reinstated ''L. cordifolia'' as a distinct species, but under the new combination that remains today, i.e. ''Dendrocnide cordifolia''.

Etymology

The genus name ''Dendrocnide'' is derived from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

words '' déndron'', meaning "tree", and '' knídē'', meaning "stinging needle". The species epithet '' cordifolia'' is a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word derived from ''

cor Cor or COR may refer to: People * Cor people, an ethnic group of Vietnam * Cor (given name), including a list of people with the name * Jon Cor (born 1984), a Canadian actor Places * Cor, Templeport, a townland in County Cavan, Ireland * Califor ...

'' (heart) and '' folium'' (leaf), which is a reference to the heart-shaped leaves of this species.

Distribution and habitat

''D. cordifolia'' is restricted to a small part of north-eastern Queensland, specifically the

Atherton Tableland The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. The principal river flowing across the plateau is the Barron River. It was dammed to form an irrigation reservoir named Lake Tina ...

and nearby areas, at elevations from . It grows as an understory plant in disturbed areas of

rainforest Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...

, such as treefalls, creek margins, roadsides, and man-made clearings.

Conservation

This species is listed by the Queensland Department of Environment and Science as

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

. , it has not been assessed by the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

Toxicity

''D. cordifolia'' produces intense pain when a person comes into contact with any part of the plant, very similar to the more well-known and closely-related ''D. moriodes''. A detailed discussion of the toxicity of both of these plants can be found in the '' D. moroides'' article.

References

External links

* *
View a map
of recorded sightings of ''Dendrocnide cordifolia'' at the

Australasian Virtual Herbarium The ''Australasian Virtual Herbarium'' (AVH) is an online resource that allows access to plant specimen data held by various Australian and New Zealand herbaria. It is part of the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), and was formed by the amalgamat ...

See images
of ''Dendrocnide cordifolia'' on Flickriver {{Taxonbar, from=Q15612657 Endemic flora of Australia Flora of Queensland Taxa named by Lindsay Stuart Smith cordifolia Taxa named by Betsy Rivers Jackes