''Medinilla balls-headleyi'', commonly known as Daintree medinilla, is a climbing plant in the family

Melastomataceae Melastomataceae () is a family of dicotyledonous flowering plants found mostly in the tropics (two-thirds of the genera are from the New World tropics) comprising c. 175 genera and c. 5115 known species. Melastomes are annual or perennial herbs ...

found only in the Wet Tropics bioregion 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 ...

, Australia. It is a root climber with a stem diameter of up to . Flowers and fruit are borne in clusters on the twigs behind the leaves. It was first described in 1887 by the German-born Australian botanist

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Victoria, Australia ...

Conservation

This species is listed as

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 ...

under the Queensland Government's

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 ...

. , it has not been assessed 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).

Gallery

File:Medinilla balls-headleyi 386818873.jpg, Foliage File:Medinilla-balls-headleyi-SF24293-06.jpg, File:Medinilla-balls-headleyi-SF24293-05.jpg, Fruit File:Medinilla balls-headleyi 386817199.jpg, Fruit detail

References

External links

View a map
of herbarium collections 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 observations
of 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 ...

View images
of this species on Flickriver.com {{Taxonbar, from=Q65943165 balls-headleyi Least concern flora of Australia Endemic flora of Queensland Taxa named by Ferdinand von Mueller Plants described in 1887