Species profile—Lepiderema pulchella (fine-leaved tuckeroo)
Classification
Plantae (plants) → Equisetopsida (land plants) → Sapindaceae → Lepiderema pulchella (fine-leaved tuckeroo)
Sighting data
Species details
- Kingdom
- Plantae (plants)
- Class
- Equisetopsida (land plants)
- Family
- Sapindaceae
- Scientific name
- Lepiderema pulchella Radlk.
- Common name
- fine-leaved tuckeroo
- WildNet taxon ID
- 13521
- Alternate name(s)
- fine leaved tuckeroo
- Nature Conservation Act 1992 (NCA) status
- Vulnerable
- Conservation significant
- Yes
- Confidential
- No
- Endemicity
- Native
- Pest status
- Nil
- Description
- Lepiderema pulchella is a small tree growing to 15 m high. The branchlets, leaves and peduncles are glabrous. The leaves are alternate, 7 to 15 cm long, with 1 to 4 pairs of leaflets. The leaflets are narrow-elliptic to lanceolate, may or may not be falcate, 2.5 to 8 cm long and 1 to 25 mm wide, with an apex which is bluntly acuminate and the base which is attenuate and asymmetric. The leaflet margins are undulate and entire (sometimes coarsely toothed on juveniles). Both surfaces of the leaflets are glabrous, the upper surface is light green and glossy. The midrib is raised on both surfaces, and there are 8 to 10 pairs of lateral nerves which are very fine and usually indistinct. The petiole is 15 to 25 mm long, the petiolules are 1 to 3 mm long. The inflorescences occur in axillary panicles, 5 to 10 cm long. The pedicles are 3 to 5 mm long. The flowers are yellow-orange in colour, 2 to 3 mm long. The capsules are globose and are 3-lobed, 8 to 10 mm diameter, brown in colour and shortly attenuate at the base. The seeds are dark brown, 5 mm long, and the aril is basal and yellow (Reynolds, 1982; Reynolds, 1983; Harden, 2002).
- Map
- View Map
- Distribution
- Lepiderema pulchella is distributed from southeastern Queensland to Tweed River, northeastern New South Wales. The most northern populations include Caloundra City Council Conservation Reserve southwest of Maleny and Bellthorpe State Forest in Queensland. At both locations the species was considered rare. Other more southern locations include Raleigh Terrace, Currumbin Waters (QLD); Olsens Bird Gardens, Currumbin Valley (QLD); Warrie National Park, Springbrook (QLD); Numinbah Nature Reserve (QLD), Tomewin, Murwillumbah; Terranora (NSW), and areas around Tweed River (NSW). Very little information exists on the current status of the populations, but where described the species is considered rare or scarce. The species occurs within Lamington National Park, Main Range National Park, Nicoll Scrub National Park, Springbrook National Park, Tamborine National Park and Tomewin Conservation Park (Queensland Herbarium, 2011).
- Distributional limits
- -26.7982778, 152.7771754
-28.241, 153.45826 - Range derivation
- Range derived from extent of the taxon's verified records
- Habitat
- Lepiderema pulchella grows on creek and river banks at the edge of rainforests in northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland. The species has been recorded growing on brown loam soil with basalt. Associated vegetation includes; tall closed forest (complex notophyll vine forest) with Argyrodendron trifoliolatum and Pseudoweinmannia lachnocarpa; at the edge of rainforest with Dendrocnide photinophylla, Aphananthe, Planchonella, Diospyros and; marginal riparian rainforest with eucalypt emergents within an area of Eucalyptus pilularis /E. acmenoides tall open forest (Queensland Herbarium, 2011).
- Reproduction
- Flowering of Lepiderema pulchella has been recorded in August, immature fruit in September and ripe fruit in December (Harden, 2002; Queensland Herbarium, 2011).
- Threatening processes
- Threatening processes for Lepiderema pulchella include: invasion of habitat by introduced weeds, clearing and fragmentation of habitat for development and collection of seed for horticulture (NSW Scientific Committee, 2001).
- Status notes
- Lepiderema pulchella is listed as Vulnerable under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992 and Vulnerable in NSW (NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995)
- Management recommendations
- Management recommendations for the protection of Lepiderema pulchella include: protect areas of lowland subtropical rainforest from clearing or fragmentation; seek a permit from the government departments before collecting seed from wild plants; buy plants only from licensed nurseries and remove weeds in known and potential habitat (NSW Scientific Committee, 2001).
- Notes
- Occurs in the following Queensland pastoral districts: Moreton, Wide Bay. Also occurs in New South Wales (Bostock and Holland, 2010).
- References
- Harden, G.J. (2002). Flora of New South Wales Revised Edition 2: 345.
NSW Scientific Committee (2001). Lepiderema pulchella (a tree) - Vulnerable species determination - final. DEC (NSW), Sydney.
Queensland Herbarium (2011). Specimen label information. Queensland Herbarium. Accessed 17/12/2011.
Reynolds, S.T. (1982). Notes on Sapindaceae in Australia, II. Austrobaileya 1 (5): 491, Fig. 39.
Reynolds, S.T. in Stanley, T.D. and Ross, E.M. (1983). Flora of South-eastern Queensland 1: 514. - Profile author
- Lynise Wearne (19/12/2011)
Other resources
Data source
This profile data is sourced from the QLD Wildlife Data API using the Get species by ID function used under CC-By 4.0.
https://apps.des.qld.gov.au/species/?op=getspeciesbyid&taxonid=13521.
This information is sourced from the WildNet database managed by the Queensland Department of Environment and Science.
