Mystery Tree

Mt Stuart has long been a place of interest for viewing native plants. It is close to the city, the peak is accessible by road, and we conduct outings regularly, particularly in February to view the ground orchid, Habenaria triplonema.

Although the entire range is army land, Townsville City Council maintain a Scenic Reserve; which, at 584 metres presents an entirely different landscape from that experienced at sea level. For an ever growinglist of plants that we regularly see, visit our Mt Stuart page.

One species that we have not seen before was recently discovered at the base of a deep gully directly below the peak.  At first sight it has all the appearance of a Gossia, with a smooth mottled bark and dark green, glossy leaves, aromatic and with oil dots.

The Mystery Tree occurs directly on the creek, in the base of the gully; no specimen is growing more than about 2 metres above the bottom of the gully. There are about 120 'mature' specimens with juveniles scattered throughout, over about 350 metres. the majority would be in the range of 4 to 8 metres in height, but at the lower end where the gully opens out, there are several larger specimens, the largest being about 15 metres in height and having a circumference at breast height of 145 cm.

In the upper section, quite a number are multi stemmed, and this would appear to come from coppicing at the base (which is evident in quite a number of specimens throughout - perhaps from a lignotuber or from suckering - which is probably due to the exposed roots sustaining damage from debris in heavy rain periods. There does not appear to be a reason for the coppicing as all appear very healthy from a couple of good wet seasons.

It was not until we found some 'fruit' that the Mystery Tree took on truly mysterious proportions.

Fruiting had been very heavy from some of the trees, and we thought this would make identification relatively simple. After several wrong turns, we passed the material on to Betsy Jackes, author of many books on local botany, and SGAP member.

 

The 'fruit'consists of a papery capsule (perhaps 5-8mm)with four distinct 'wings', enclosing a much smaller ovary attached to the base of the capsule.

 

This arrangement is continuing to bemuse the experts.

DNA testing confirms that it is indeed in the Family Myrtaceae, closely allied to the tribe Backhousieae, but it will take a considerable amount of continuing research to fully understand this Mystery Tree!