Callitris tuberulata

Location & distribution maps

Common name:         Mallee Pine

Conservation status: not evaluated

• The IUCN does not recognize this taxon as distinct from C. preissii

• Yet, it has a limited range and the area of occupancy seems not to have been assessed

• Its conservation status is therefore "not evaluated" under IUCN criteria

Etymology:   

Cones and seeds:                            

• Pollen cones clustered, cylindrical, to 5 mm long

• Seed cones solitary or clustered on stout, apically expanded branchlets; globular, 20-25 mm diameter, persistent holding seeds for several years after maturity; cones scales 6, thick, irregularly tuberculate with tubercles up to 3 mm across, united to form a thick cone base, not spreading widely after opening, alternate scales reduced, larger scales obtuse; columella thick, 2-4 mm long

• Seeds numerous, dark brown, with 2-3 wings 4 mm wide 

Leaves:         

Stem & branches: 

Roots:         

Habit:        

• Shrubs or small trees to 8 m tall, single- or multi-stemmed. Leaves on ultimate branchlets 2-4 mm long, green or gray green, with rounded upper surface

Habitat:   

• Red desert sandhills, plains, coastal dunes and headlands

• It is more adapted to extreme aridity than any of the other Callitris species 

Distribution:                  

• Western Australia, widespread 

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy

  • Three taxa of Callitris continue to cause considerable debate; one is a tree endemic to the Perth area; another is a shrub or small tree widely distributed in the south of Western Australia; and the third is a tree of the Murray River drainage and some outlying areas in New South Wales, Victoria, and eastern South Australia

  • The first is Callitris preissii, the second is C. tuberculata, and the third is C. gracilis

  • As with many Callitris taxa, morphological evidence is ambiguous; all taxa are distinct, but diagnostic characters tend to overlap, such that distribution and ecology may have to be considered to get to a confident identification

  • Farjon (2010), for instance, could not find any consistent morphological differences between C. preissii and C. tuberculata, so he united them

  • However, two molecular studies (Pye et al. 2003, Larter et al. 2017) place C. tuberculata sister to C. gracilis, with C. preissii in a relatively distant clade

  • Citing Farjon (2010), the current taxonomic authorities (POWO and Atlas of Living Australia) have chosen to lump C. tuberculata with the unrelated C. preissii rather than with its sister taxon, C. gracilis

  • It seems better to regard all three as distinct taxa, having distinctions in morphology, distribution, and ecology

  • It may yet prove appropriate to unite C. gracilis and C. tuberculata, but no authorities to date have done so

  • Differences in appearance

    • C. preissii differs in being usually a single-stemmed tree rather than a multi-stemmed shrub, and in having seed cones a bit larger at 25-30 mm, and more uniformly tuberculate

    • C. gracilis differs in being usually a single-stemmed tree, seed cones a bit larger at 25-30 mm, and cone scales smooth or sparsely tuberculate

Sources of information:

•  https://www.conifers.org/cu/Callitris_tuberculata.php (2024)

• https://bie.ala.org.au/search?q=Callitris+tuberculata (2024)