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''Nuytsia floribunda'' is a hemiparasitic tree found in
Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to t ...
. The species is known locally as moodjar and, more recently, the Christmas tree or Western Australian Christmas tree. The display of intensely bright flowers during the austral summer coincides with the
Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...
season.


Description

The habit of the species may be a tree, up to 10 metres high, or as a lower shrub form. The rough bark is grey-brown.
Flowers A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism ...
are a vivid yellow-orange, appearing sometime between October and January. 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 on ...
on each flowering stem may be up to one metre in length. It is a
root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...
hemiparasite, is photosynthetic and mainly obtains water and mineral nutrients from its hosts. The
haustoria In botany and mycology, a haustorium (plural haustoria) is a rootlike structure that grows into or around another structure to absorb water or nutrients. For example, in mistletoe or members of the broomrape family, the structure penetrates ...
arising from the roots of ''Nuytsia'' attach themselves to roots of many nearby plants and draw water and therefore nutrients from them. Almost all species are susceptible to attack; haustoria have even been found attached to underground cables. In natural settings ''Nuytsia'' withdraws relatively little from each individual host, but is attached to so many other plants that the benefit to this hemiparasitic tree is likely to be considerable. Roots and
rhizomes In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow ho ...
extend out and may sucker to form new branches that give the appearance of a grove of trees. A network of fine and fragile roots arise from these larger underground parts, forming haustoria where they meet the roots of other species. These roots or rhizomes can be up to 150 meters (492 feet) in length; the most extensive of any known plant. The width is up to 1.2 metres in diameter, composed of multiple layers of wood and bark that allow the tree to withstand fire. An unusual characteristic of the seedlings is the four to six cotyledons rather than two.


Taxonomy

Recognised in its earliest descriptions as a species of the
Loranthaceae Loranthaceae, commonly known as the showy mistletoes, is a family of flowering plants. It consists of about 75 genera and 1,000 species of woody plants, many of them hemiparasites. The three terrestrial species are '' Nuytsia floribunda'' (t ...
, a family almost entirely represented by epiphytes (
mistletoe Mistletoe is the common name for obligate hemiparasitic plants in the order Santalales. They are attached to their host tree or shrub by a structure called the haustorium, through which they extract water and nutrients from the host plant. ...
s) allied in the
Santalales The Santalales are an order of flowering plants with a cosmopolitan distribution, but heavily concentrated in tropical and subtropical regions. It derives its name from its type genus '' Santalum'' (sandalwood). Mistletoe is the common name for ...
order. The current treatment of ''Nuytsia floribunda'' is as a monotypic genus, ''Nuytsia''. This species was seen as a sister taxon to '' Atkinsonia ligustrina'' (Loranthaceae) in its description as ''Nuytsia ligustrina'' by Allan Cunningham in 1817. The first description was published by
Jacques Labillardière Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardière (28 October 1755 – 8 January 1834) was a French biologist noted for his descriptions of the flora of Australia. Labillardière was a member of a voyage in search of the La Pérouse expedition. He pu ...
in ''
Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen ''Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen'' is a two-volume work describing the flora of Australia. Facsimiles of the originals can be found in the onlinBiodiversity Heritage Library (Vol.1)anVol 2) The author was the French botanist Jacques Labillar ...
'' (1805) as ''Loranthus floribundus'', the specific epithet describing the profuse flowers he had observed at Esperance. The botanist Robert Brown published a remark on the species in 1831, giving a new genus name without a formal description. A description was published by
George Don George Don (29 April 1798 – 25 February 1856) was a Scottish botanist and plant collector. Life and career George Don was born at Doo Hillock, Forfar, Angus, Scotland on 29 April 1798 to Caroline Clementina Stuart and George Don (b.1756), ...
using Brown's name ''Nuytsia'', an epithet that commemorates the seventeenth-century Dutch explorer and colonial official Pieter Nuyts. The
Noongar The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the so ...
names for the plant are moojar, moojerool, munjah and mutyal. The regional name of 'Christmas tree' has been applied since the nineteenth century. James Drummond noted in 1843 that the colonists at the Swan River referred to this species as the 'fire-tree', given for the resemblance of the inflorescence to a fire in its habitat. William Milligan reported that the first colonists used the term 'cabbage tree', a reference to its fragile, white and spongey branches that can be snapped off as easily as the stalks of the European vegetable,
cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nbs ...
.


Distribution and habitat

''Nuytsia floribunda'' is well known in
Southwest Australia Southwest Australia is a biogeographic region in Western Australia. It includes the Mediterranean-climate area of southwestern Australia, which is home to a diverse and distinctive flora and fauna. The region is also known as the Southwest Au ...
, especially due to the appearance of abundant flowers in summer which is a spectacular display. Although ''Nuytsia'' seeds germinate readily and seedlings are easy to grow for a year or two, cultivation of the species to maturity is regarded as difficult, with little success outside of its native habitat. It appears on a variety of soil types throughout Southwest Australia, the distribution of the species extends to the east of the Esperance Plain and to the north on the
Geraldton Sandplains Geraldton (Wajarri: ''Jambinu'', Wilunyu: ''Jambinbirri'') is a coastal city in the Mid West region of the Australian state of Western Australia, north of the state capital, Perth. At June 2018, Geraldton had an urban population of 37,648. ...
.
Distribution records: The Australian Virtual Herbarium.
The species was once common across the
Swan Coastal Plain The Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia is the geographic feature which contains the Swan River as it travels west to the Indian Ocean. The coastal plain continues well beyond the boundaries of the Swan River and its tributaries, as a geol ...
, now mostly cleared around Perth with changes in land use since colonisation.


Uses

The
Nyungar The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the so ...
people made use of the species during the season Kambarang, around October to early December, obtaining bark to make shields. The gum that exudes from the wound can be collected later, it is sweet and eaten raw. Flowers from the moodjar tree are traditionally used to make a sweet
mead Mead () is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water, and sometimes with added ingredients such as fruits, spices, grains, or hops. The alcoholic content ranges from about 3.5% ABV to more than 20%. The defining characte ...
-like beverage during birak. Moodjar (or Muja) is regarded as a protected tree by the Nyungar peoples of Southwest Australia, the species is noted as being incorporated into rituals and having a conservation status that forbids their destruction. The plant is venerated by some who learn that it should not be sat beneath or its flowers, leaves or branches touched or taken. The sugary gum is consumed in modest quantities, and children are warned of overindulgence with the story of a monstrous, invulnerable and inescapable nocturnal being whose cry of 'Nhervalong' could be heard as it collects the gum on which it subsists. Seasonal use by other groups of the roots is also known, Ethel Hassell at Jerramungup was invited to taste some being harvested by a group of women, reporting the taste of the flesh beneath an easily removed skin as sweet, brittle and somewhat watery. The wood of the tree was noted as commercially useless, and that cultivation and transplanting difficult or impractical for gardens or landscaping by the state's conservator Charles Lane Poole (1921), deeming the showy display of flowers to be its only desirable quality. Poole also notes the 'gum' that is exuded from the tree may be useful. The artist
Marianne North Marianne North (24 October 1830 – 30 August 1890) was a prolific English Victorian biologist and botanical artist, notable for her plant and landscape paintings, her extensive foreign travels, her writings, her plant discoveries and th ...
featured the tree in an illustration titled 'Study of the West Australian Flame-tree or Fire-tree’ (c. 1880), now held at
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 ...
, and recorded her effusive impressions, "I shall never forget one plain we came to, entirely surrounded by the nuytsia or mistletoe trees, in a full blaze of bloom. It looked like a bush-fire without smoke. The trees are, many of them, as big as average oaks in our hedgerows at home, …" The early settler
George Fletcher Moore George Fletcher Moore (10 December 1798 – 30 December 1886) was a prominent early settler in colonial Western Australia, and "one fthe key figures in early Western Australia's ruling elite" (Cameron, 2000). He conducted a number of exploring ...
described this parasitic tree as another "anomaly in this land of contradictions". A journal of systematic botany, ''
Nuytsia ''Nuytsia floribunda'' is a hemiparasitic tree found in Western Australia. The species is known locally as moodjar and, more recently, the Christmas tree or Western Australian Christmas tree. The display of intensely bright flowers during the ...
'', published by the
Western Australian Herbarium The Western Australian Herbarium is the State Herbarium in Perth, Western Australia. It is part of the State government's Department of Parks and Wildlife, and has responsibility for the description and documentation of the flora of Western Aust ...
, is named for this tree. The ''Annals of Natural History'' (1842) reported a specimen being grown at a government garden in 1841, and the attempt to raise the few seed it produced; the correspondence is printed as from "H. Bidwell … of Sidney ic.


Ecology

The flowers produce large amounts of pollen and nectar that is consumed by insects. The parasitic relationship of ''Nuytsia floribunda'' with host species was poorly understood until an investigation by the botanist D. A. Herbert was presented to the Royal Society of Western Australia, contradicting the assumption that proximity to other trees such as
banksia ''Banksia'' is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes, and fruiting "cones" and heads. ''Banksias'' range i ...
and
jarrah ''Eucalyptus marginata'', commonly known as jarrah, djarraly in Noongar language and historically as Swan River mahogany, is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a tree with rough ...
was a requirement. Herbert discovered the extended network of filaments that embrace the roots of many other plant species, explaining the persistence of trees conserved in agricultural land cleared for introduced crops. There are various lists of both native and introduced host species that are vulnerable to attack, however evidence suggests ''Nuytsia'' is capable of parasitising an extraordinarily wide range of taxa with only a single published account of a species that appeared immune ('' Adenanthos cygnorum''). The generalised nature of the mode of host root attachment presumably allows parasitism to occur on just about anything within reach. ''Nuytsia floribunda'' was once common and well known on the coastal plain around Perth, often remaining in remnant bushland and gardens, becoming more scarce as the extent and density of urban development increased.


See also

*''
Metrosideros excelsa ''Metrosideros excelsa'', commonly known as pōhutukawa ( mi, pōhutukawa), New Zealand Christmas tree, New Zealand Christmas bush, and iron tree, is a coastal evergreen tree in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, that produces a brilliant display o ...
'', New Zealand Christmas tree


Notes


References


Association of Societies for Growing Australian Plants (ASGAP) ''Nuytsia floribunda''
*Thomas Göbel: ''Heilpflanzen gegen Krebs und Psychose, Nuytsia Floribunda und Viscum Album'', Betrachtung und Beurteilung zweier polarer Pflanzencharaktere und ihre Anwendungsmöglichkeiten. Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart/Germany 2004, (German language)


Further reading

*


External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q15102057, from2=Q135391 Loranthaceae Loranthaceae genera Eudicots of Western Australia Parasitic plants Trees of Australia Trees of Mediterranean climate Ornamental trees Monotypic Santalales genera Noongar culture Endemic flora of Southwest Australia