''Persoonia spathulifolia'' is a species of flowering plant in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Proteaceae The Proteaceae form a family (biology), family of flowering plants predominantly distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The family comprises 83 genus, genera with about 1,660 known species. Australia and South Africa have the greatest concentr ...

. It is a shrub or small tree endemic to

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

Description

The plant grows as a shrub up to 2 m in height, sometimes a small tree up to 4 m. Its shiny leaves are dark green above, paler below. The fruits are green at first, becoming dark crimson to brown. The flowers are white and scented.

Range and habitat

It ranges across Grande Terre, from Grand Massif Sud to the northwest of the island with an extension to Mont Monéo in the northeast. It grows on

ultramafic Ultramafic rocks (also referred to as ultrabasic rocks, although the terms are not wholly equivalent) are igneous and meta-igneous rocks with a very low silica content (less than 45%), generally >18% MgO, high FeO, low potassium, and are usua ...

substrates as an understory tree in dense forest and in scrubland from 20 to 900 metres elevation.

Taxonomy

The type specimen was collected at Prony Bay in 1868–1870 by Benjamin Balansa.Virot, R. (1967). Protéacées. In Flore de La Nouvelle-Calédonie et Dépendances, edited by A. Aubréville, 2:1–254. Paris: Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. The species was first described ''Cenarrhenes spathulifolia'' by Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart & Jean Antoine Arthur Gris in 1865. In 1871 Brogniart and Gris placed in the monotypic genus ''Garnieria'' as ''Garnieria spathulifolia''. Molecular phylogenetic studies indicated that it is nested in the larger Australian genus ''

Persoonia ''Persoonia'', commonly known as geebungs or snottygobbles, is a genus of about one hundred species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae. Plants in the genus ''Persoonia'' are shrubs or small trees usually with smooth bark, simple lea ...

'',Holmes, G. D., Weston, P. H., Murphy, D. J., Connelly, C., & Cantrill, D. J. (2018). The genealogy of geebungs: phylogenetic analysis of Persoonia (Proteaceae) and related genera in subfamily Persoonioideae. Australian Systematic Botany, 31(2), 166-189. and in 2023 was renamed ''Persoonia spathulifolia'' by Yohan Pillon.

References

Persoonioideae Endemic flora of New Caledonia Plants described in 1865 Taxa named by Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart Taxa named by Jean Antoine Arthur Gris Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN {{Proteaceae-stub