Persoonia media

Location & distribution maps

Common name:         ...

Conservation status: ...

Etymology:   

• The generic name is in honour of Dutch mycologist and botanist Christiaan Hendrik Persoon

Flowers

• The flowers are arranged singly or in groups of up to sixteen on a rachis on a rachis up to 150 mm long

• Each flower is on a pedicel 3–10 mm long

• The tepals are yellow and 10–14 mm long

• Flowering occurs from December to April

Fruit:                            

Leaves:         

• The leaves are elliptic to egg-shaped, 30–140 mm long and 4–35 mm wide 

• The edges rolled under

Stem & branches: 

• The bark is smooth but finely fissured at the base of the trunk

• Branchlets, leaves and flowers are glabrous or sparsely hairy with light brown to rust-coloured hairs

Roots:         

Habit:        

• A spreading shrub or tree that shows considerable variability, with a maximum height anywhere from 0.3 m to 25 m

• Plants in dry sites south of the Macleay River grow from lignotubers and are short and multi-stemmed, while those growing in wetter areas are taller, single-stemmed and tend to have narrower leaves

Habitat:   

• It grows in forest, including rainforest on soils derived from igneous and metamorphic rocks

Distribution:                  

• This geebung is found on the Lamington and Springbrook Plateaus in south-eastern Queensland, and south through the Nightcap National Park, the upper Manning River, the eastern part of the New England Tableland and as far south as Barrington Tops

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy

  • Persoonia media was first formally described in 1830 by Robert Brown in the supplement to his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen

  • The genus was reviewed by Peter Weston for the Flora of Australia treatment in 1995, and P. media was placed in the Lanceolata group, a group of 54 closely related species with similar flowers but very different foliage

  • These species will often interbreed with each other where two members of the group occur

  • Hybrids with P. oleoides, P. linearis, P. conjuncta and possibly P. adenantha have been recorded

• Ecology

  • Researchers from the University of New England found that P. media is killed by fire and regenerates from seed

  • It takes around 5 to 6 years to reach maturity from seed, though is generally a short-lived plant with a life span of twenty years or less

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persoonia_media (2023)