''Rhodomyrtus macrocarpa'', commonly known as finger cherry, Cooktown loquat, or wannakai, is a species of plant in the family
Myrtaceae
Myrtaceae (), the myrtle family, is a family of dicotyledonous plants placed within the order Myrtales. Myrtle, pōhutukawa, bay rum tree, clove, guava, acca (feijoa), allspice, and eucalyptus are some notable members of this group. All ...
native to
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...
, the
Aru Islands Aru or ARU may refer to:
Education
* Alpha Rho Upsilon, a defunct fraternity in the United States
* Anglia Ruskin University, a university in England
* Ardhi University, a Tanzanian public university
Places
* Aru Islands Regency, a group of i ...
, and the Australian state of
Queensland
Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
. Eating the fruits is reputed to cause blindness.
Description
''Rhodomyrtus macrocarpa'' is a shrub or small tree growing to about tall with rough pale brown bark. The growing tips are covered in fine pale grey hairs. The leaves are
elliptic
In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of the two distances to the focal points is a constant. It generalizes a circle, which is the special type of ellipse in ...
, hairless and
simple
Simple or SIMPLE may refer to:
*Simplicity, the state or quality of being simple
Arts and entertainment
* ''Simple'' (album), by Andy Yorke, 2008, and its title track
* "Simple" (Florida Georgia Line song), 2018
* "Simple", a song by John ...
(i.e. not divided) and arranged in opposite pairs. They measure up to long by wide and are held on
petioles about long.
Flowers are produced in the upper leaf in clusters of 1–3; they are white or pink and about across, with numerous stamens. The fruit is a pink or red cylindrical botanical
berry
A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples of berries in the cul ...
up to long and wide, containing from one to several flattened, pale brown seeds about diameter.
Taxonomy
This species was first described by the English botanist
George Bentham
George Bentham (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884) was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studie ...
in 1866, based on material collected from
Albany Island
Albany Island or Pabaju is an island off the north-eastern coast of Cape York Peninsula in the Adolphus Channel of Queensland, Australia. It is within the locality of Somerset in the Shire of Torres.
Geography
Albany Island is off the no ...
at the tip of
Cape York Peninsula
The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...
, and from
Rockingham Bay
Rockingham Bay is a bay in Far North Queensland, Australia.
The bay opens onto the Coral Sea, part of the South Pacific Ocean. Adjacent to the bay is the Girramay National Park, south of which is the town of Cardwell. Goold Island is a small ...
. The description was published in volume 3 of ''
Flora Australiensis
''Flora Australiensis: a description of the plants of the Australian Territory'', more commonly referred to as ''Flora Australiensis'', and also known by its standard abbreviation ''Fl. Austral.'', is a seven-volume Flora of Australia published b ...
''.
Conservation
, this species has been assessed to be of
least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...
by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...
(IUCN) and by the Queensland Government under its
Nature Conservation Act
The ''Nature Conservation Act 1992'' is an act of the Parliament of Queensland, Australia, that, together with subordinate legislation, provides for the legislative protection of Queensland's threatened biota.
As originally published, it prov ...
. The IUCN's report states that the species has a large range no specific threats have been identified, although habitat loss due to urbanisation in Australia is a minor concern.
Cultivation
The plant produces showy flowers and colourful fruit, which would normally earmark it for cultivation as an ornamental, however, this is discouraged due to the potential toxicity of the fruit.
Toxicity
While it is known that the fruit of this species were eaten by Indigenous Australians without ill-effect, there has been a number of well documented incidents involving European settlers eating the fruit which resulted in them becoming permanently blind. The cases usually involved children, and the ingestion of large numbers of fruit. It has been suggested that unripe fruit or a fungal infection in the fruit may be involved, but no pathogen or constituent compound of the fruit has been identified as being responsible for the loss of sight, and the cause remains a mystery.
Gallery
References
External links
View a mapof herbarium records of this species at the
Australasian Virtual Herbarium
The ''Australasian Virtual Herbarium'' (AVH) is an online resource that allows access to plant specimen data held by various Australian and New Zealand herbaria. It is part of the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), and was formed by the amalgama ...
View observationsof this species on
iNaturalist
iNaturalist is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. iNaturalist may be accessed via its web ...
See imagesof this species on Flickriver.com
{{Taxonbar, from=Q7321196
macrocarpa
Flora of New Guinea
Flora of Queensland