''Gardenia actinocarpa'' is a rare and

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

plant in the madder family

Rubiaceae The Rubiaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with interpetiolar stipules a ...

that grows in a very restricted area within the Wet Tropics rainforest of north-east

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 , establishe ...

Description

This species grows as an

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, whic ...

understory In forestry and ecology, understory (American English), or understorey (Commonwealth English), also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the forest canopy without penetrating it to any great extent, but abo ...

plant, reaching up to in height but flowering and fruiting once it reaches around . It is a spindly

arborescent A rhizome is a concept in post-structuralism describing a nonlinear network that "connects any point to any other point". It appears in the work of French theorists Deleuze and Guattari, who used the term in their book ''A Thousand Plateaus'' to ...

shrub with a stem diameter of around at breast height. The leaves are opposite and chartaceous (papery) with wavy edges, glossy mid green above and paler below, and attached to the twigs with a petiole around long. They measure between long and wide, and are generally

obovate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular ...

in shape. They have a long

attenuate In physics, attenuation (in some contexts, extinction) is the gradual loss of flux intensity through a medium. For instance, dark glasses attenuate sunlight, lead attenuates X-rays, and water and air attenuate both light and sound at vari ...

(tapering) base and an extended "

drip tip This glossary of botanical terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to botany and plants in general. Terms of plant morphology are included here as well as at the more specific Glossary of plant morphology and Glossary o ...

Stipule In botany, a stipule is an outgrowth typically borne on both sides (sometimes on just one side) of the base of a leafstalk (the petiole). Stipules are considered part of the anatomy of the leaf of a typical flowering plant, although in many speci ...

s are conical, up to long and resinous. Flowers are

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output dev ...

solitary Solitary is the state of being alone or in solitude. The term may refer to: * shortened form of solitary confinement * Solitary animal, an animal that does not live with others in its species * Solitary but social, a type of social organization ...

actinomorphic Floral symmetry describes whether, and how, a flower, in particular its perianth, can be divided into two or more identical or mirror-image parts. Uncommonly, flowers may have no axis of symmetry at all, typically because their parts are spirall ...

and 6-merous, borne on

pedicels In botany, a pedicel is a stem that attaches a single flower to the inflorescence. Such inflorescences are described as ''pedicellate''. Description Pedicel refers to a structure connecting a single flower to its inflorescence. In the absenc ...

between long. The

calyx tube A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coine ...

is green,

coriaceous This glossary of botanical terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to botany and plants in general. Terms of plant morphology are included here as well as at the more specific Glossary of plant morphology and Glossary o ...

, and has six external longitudinal ridges extending into the laterally compressed calyx lobes. The corolla is about in diameter, white with six elliptical petals, and a corolla tube measuring about long. Fruits are green, ellipsoidal, up to long by wide,

glabrous Glabrousness (from the Latin '' glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...

, with six longitudinal ridges, and the calyx lobes remain attached at the apex. They contain a number of seeds which are up to diameter by thick.

Phenology

Flowering occurs from November to June and fruits mature from February to November. This species is dioecious (male and female flowers produced on separate plants) with little variation in size between the two sexes.

Taxonomy

''Gardenia actinocarpa'' was described by the Australian botanist C.F. Puttock from samples collected by

Geoff Tracey John Geoffrey Tracey (1930 – 30 July 2004) was an Australian ecologist and botanist whose pioneering research work in partnership with Dr. Leonard Webb within the Rainforest Ecology Unit of the CSIRO in the 1950s led to the publicati ...

and Leonard Webb in 1973 from Oliver Creek, near Cape Tribulation, Queensland. Puttock's paper was published in ''

Austrobaileya ''Austrobaileya'' is the sole genus consisting of a single species that constitutes the entire flowering plant family Austrobaileyaceae. The species ''Austrobaileya scandens'' grows naturally only in the Wet Tropics rainforests of northeast ...

'', the annual journal of the

Queensland Herbarium The Queensland Herbarium (Index Herbariorum code: BRI) is situated at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is part of Queensland's Department of Environment and Science. It is responsible for disco ...

, in 1988.

Etymology

The species epithet ''actinocarpa'' derives from

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 p ...

ἀκτίς (aktī́s), meaning "ray" and καρπός (karpós), meaning fruit. It refers to the star-shaped cross-section of the fruit.

Distribution and habitat

This rare species is found in a very restricted range, consisting of rainforested

alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. All ...

lowland Upland and lowland are conditional descriptions of a plain based on elevation above sea level. In studies of the ecology of freshwater rivers, habitats are classified as upland or lowland. Definitions Upland and lowland are portions of p ...

s in a single watershed of the

Daintree rainforest The Daintree Rainforest is a region on the northeast coast of Queensland, Australia, north of Mossman and Cairns. At around , the Daintree is a part of the largest continuous area of tropical rainforest on the Australian continent. The Daintr ...

. A study published in 2001 has suggested that this is a relatively new species which is still expanding its range.

Conservation

''G. actinocarpa'' is classified as

under the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 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 cult ...

and the

Nature Conservation Act 1992 The ''Nature Conservation Act 1992'' is an act of the Parliament of Queensland, Australia, that, together with subordinate legislation, provides for the legislative protection of Queensland's threatened biota. As originally published, it pro ...

. Threats facing the species include the potential fragmentation of its habitat, limited female

fecundity Fecundity is defined in two ways; in human demography, it is the potential for reproduction of a recorded population as opposed to a sole organism, while in population biology, it is considered similar to fertility, the natural capability to pr ...

(when compared with related species), rapid loss of seed viability, and geographical barriers. , it has not been assessed by IUCN.

Gallery

Image:Gardenia actinocarpa male flower B.Gray CC-BY.jpg, Male flower Image:Gardenia actinocarpa 05 SF21134.jpg, Cairns Botanic Gardens, May 2021 Image:Gardenia-actinocarpa-SF22094-03.jpg, Developing fruit. Cairns Botanic Gardens April 2022 Image:Gardenia actinocarpa 10 SF21134.jpg, Calyx, shortly after corolla has detached

References

External links

* * * See
map of recorded sightings
of '' Gardenia actinocarpa'' 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 amalgama ...

* See
map of recorded sightings
of ''Gardenia actinocarpa'' on

iNaturalist iNaturalist is a social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. iNaturalist may be accessed via its website or from its mobile applic ...

. {{Taxonbar, from=Q15454553 actinocarpa Flora of Queensland Endemic flora of Australia Taxa named by Christopher Francis Puttock Dioecious plants