Botanical vernacular is a rich one and Australia’s contributions to it no less so. Unfortunately the magnificently named hairy quandong may not be with us much longer. Limited in range to between Goonengerry and Burringbar and the equally intriguingly named Nightcap Nation Forest of northeast New South Wales, Elaeocarpus williamsianus it is severely endangered.
A small to medium rainforest tree up to 15-metres in height with creamy brown bark, the glossy green leaves are covered on their undersides with russet hairs, hence the common name. Clusters of small greenish-white flowers produce shiny round blue fruit, two to three centimetres in diameter.
Following land clearing, it is capable of regenerating from root suckers. Since it can no longer spread its seeds, this now appears to be its only method of propagation.
“The hairy quandong is rare because all the remaining populations are represented by genetically identical clones,” says Maurizio Rossetto, a principal research scientist with the Royal Botanical Gardens and Domain Trust, told
The Sydney Morning Herald. “It’s pretty much the living dead. It’s the zombie equivalent of plants,” he said.
Vegetative propagation such as by root suckers has resulted in genetically identical
Elaeocarpus williamsianus, incapable of fertilizing their own flowers. Some specimens in the Nightcap Nation Forest have produced as many as 300 individual trunks from such suckers – all, alas, in vain.
Hope, however, may be at hand. Scientists at the Gardens have determined that these and other plants with similar problems are resilient to change and could flourish if introduced into other habitats.
