Western Australian Aizoaceae

[Rev]

Im dog tired but my camera uploead function just worked by some mystery so have to share...

2 species of aizoaceae from WA, one a carpobrotus, the other unknown, both halophytes

Didge rowe who is the mesemb man in Oz tells me that there are a couple of new species over there that havent been properly described yet but are getting arond as horticultural interest. dont know what this on eis but i got a rooted cutting

i imagine it will grow much more lushly away from the salt

and the mystery species

took cuttings but misplaced the bag

an dteh habitat. Its a site of worsening salinity as seen by the retrateing and senescent community of quite salt tolerant vegetation in the central island.

You can see the edge of the road wher ethere is some capacity for leaching that salt tolerant grasses hang on

[Rev]

the unknown is known

Gunniopsis quadrifida

sweet samphire

[ 16. December 2004, 00:50: Message edited by: reville ]

[rkundalini]

Did you ever find the bag?

I was thinking of getting seeds for this and a few other native Aizoacaea from Nindethana .

[Rev]

no

but i plan to go back there

[occidentalis]

Got back yesterday from a trip down south, where I found plenty of Carpobrotus virescens (the native one of the two coastal species). Pretty pink flowers. It may be the same as picture 1, but it's hard to tell. I'll send you a cutting Rev. I intend to ferment it down and see what I get.

[ 07. January 2005, 14:48: Message edited by: creach ]

[rkundalini]

I thought the following post from a Yahoo group was pretty interesting, information-wise as well as being worthy of dissemination for its request for help...:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Succulents_g...Oz/message/1249

Until Helmutt Toelken produces his long delayed revision of Australian

Carpobrotus there will be much uncertainty about our native

species. Certainly, a number of new sub-species if not new species will

eventually be described.

Currently the Oz species in alphabetical order are;

C. aequilaterus, NSW south coast, Vic, Tas. It is similar to C chilensis.

C glaucescens, provenance in NSW. Qld. and Norfolk Isle. There are

two forms, a southern form and a northern form.

C modestus, Vic. SA. and WA is distinguished from all other Oz C by

having very small flowers and having a transverse ridge over the flat ovary

top. This species penetrates well inland into semi arid regions and is

often a post fire pioneer in the State of SA..

C. rossii, SA. Tas. WA. is similar to glaucescens and

virescens. Fruits are regularly found on long stalks and it is the only

'species' with ternate cymes??? However it seems likely that a number of

new species may be segregated from this complex. In this 'species' (at

least) either male, female or hermaphrodite plants occur. A WA

'form' with lovely white flowers is probably a new species.

C. virescens. As currently delineated differs from rossii and

glaucescens only in the number of stamens. Seed that i think originated

from Nindethana produced yellow flowers so it is either edulis or hybrid.

The introduced species that are very commonly grown here are C

edulis from South Africa, a species with large yellow flowers that later

turn reddish-pink and C chilensis from Chile, another commonly grow species

with the largest flowers (lovely pink-purple) of the genus. Hybrids

compound the uncertainty of correct identification.

Sarcozona praecox. WA. SA. south west Qld, western NSW, north-western

Vic. See article in our file about the Little Desert Yelarbon. Qld. This

is probably the only region where this species extends north into Qld.

Disphyma clavellatum, is also southern in WA. SA. Vic. NSW. and Tas.

however it too penetrates into Qld at Yelarbon. Northern forms are very

robust but grading in a cline southwards to forms with very tiny

leaves. The differences are so great that Bob Chinnock our Australian

expert on these plants may one day describe new sub-species if not new

species. This is a lovely plant with attractive

flowers unfortunately they are very difficult to maintain in the

Brisbane climate.

Helmutt Toelken, of the SA. State Herbarium, Adelaide, is still

looking for someone in WA who can work with him and the WA. Herbarium in

Perth. He requires accurately provenanced Carpobrotus material from WA to

allow completion of his work. Any WA volunteers out there with time to

travel? Cheers Didge.

[Ed Dunkel]

Nice find.

I only could find info on C. modestus, C. rossii and C. glaucescens.

I find their growth morpholigy quite variable; amount of sun, soil pH, water availability, pest resistance (scale) etc.. I have seen bright red leaved growing next to pale green, smallish to robust forms the odd white flowered all within meters of each other as well. (Woolamai beach, Phillip island, Vic)

Either their are several escapies from gardens or a couple of species that are very variable in growth form.

Some of the cuttings changed quite dramatically once planted in the garden beds, others stayed quite the same. They all seem to get major scale attack after a year or so of growing in the beds. Maybe stressed from the low lime soil in the beds as opposed to the high lime dune sand.

Some don't. I haven't played with the C. modestus inland form. It might be more robust.

[caludia]

we grow lots of C. rossii. I must have 50 individuals now. Quite a few apparent uses for it.