AusTraits

Andersonia caerulea

Explore the data for this taxon in the portal

Family Ericaceae

Taxonomy: Andersonia caerulea R.Br.

Synonyms: 11 (APC 2026-07-30)
  • Andersonia brachyanthera (F.Muell.) Benth. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Andersonia brachyanthera F.Muell. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Andersonia coerulea R.Br. (orthographic variant)
  • Andersonia depressa var. ciliata Benth. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Andersonia lanuginosa A.Cunn. ex DC. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Andersonia prostrata Sond. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Andersonia squarrosa R.Br. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Andersonia subulata Benth. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Sprengelia brachyanthera F.Muell. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Sprengelia caerulea (R.Br.) F.Muell. (nomenclatural synonym)
  • Sprengelia coerulea F.Muell. (taxonomic synonym)

Distribution (APC): WA

Profiles: APC, Flora of Australia, ALA, iNaturalist, Florabase, ATRP

Traits

Top source datasets: Burrows_2008_2 (4), Burrows_2020 (4), Clarke_2015 (3), Collette_2021 (1), Gosper_2012 (6), Hutton_1994 (1), Kew_2019_1 (1), Pekin_2011 (4), Sjostrom_2006 (4), Sweedman_2006 (3), WAH_1998 (1), WAH_2022_2 (4), WAH_2023_2 (2), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1), Wheeler_2002 (10). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 29 traits from 51 records in 16 datasets.

Traits by category (click to expand). For categorical traits, the values are listed. For numerical traits, the mean and range are shown.

fire response
flower morphology
  • sex_type (categorical): hermaphrodite (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]
fruit morphology
leaf morphology
  • leaf_length (numerical): 11.5 mm (5-18 mm) [sources: Wheeler_2002]
  • leaf_width (numerical): 3.5 mm (1-6 mm) [sources: Wheeler_2002]
  • leaf_shape (categorical): ovate (1) [sources: Wheeler_2002]
  • leaf_lobation (categorical): unlobed (1) [sources: Wheeler_2002]
  • leaf_compoundness (categorical): simple (1) [sources: Wheeler_2002]
life history
  • plant_growth_form (categorical): shrub (4) [sources: Gosper_2012; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022; Wheeler_2002]
  • life_history (categorical): perennial (6) [sources: Burrows_2008_2; Burrows_2020; Pekin_2011; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2023; Wheeler_2002]
  • woodiness_detailed (categorical): woody (2) [sources: WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
  • stem_growth_habit (categorical): decumbent (1); erect (1); spreading (1) [sources: WAH_2022_2]
  • nitrogen_fixing (categorical): non_nitrogen_fixer (1) [sources: Pekin_2011]
  • root_structure (categorical): ericoid_mycorrhizal (2) [sources: Hutton_1994; Pekin_2011]
  • reproductive_maturity (numerical): 2 a (2-2 a) [sources: Burrows_2020]
  • flowering_time (categorical): yyyyyyyyyyyy (1) [sources: WAH_1998]
  • seedbank_location (categorical): canopy_seedbank_absent (1); soil_seedbank (1) [sources: Gosper_2012]
  • serotiny (categorical): not_serotinous (1) [sources: Gosper_2012]
  • seed_dormancy_class (categorical): morphophysiological_dormancy (1) [sources: Collette_2021]
  • bud_bank_location (categorical): none (2) [sources: Burrows_2008_2; Clarke_2015]
seed morphology
  • seed_dry_mass (numerical): 0.16 mg (0.16-0.16 mg) [sources: Kew_2019_1]
whole plant morphology
  • plant_height (numerical): 0.66 m (0.05-1 m) [sources: WAH_2023_2; Wheeler_2002]

Sources

dataset_idn_traitsn_recordsreference
Wheeler_2002810J. R. Wheeler, N. G. Marchant, and M. Lewington. Flora of the south west: Bunbury, Augusta, Denmark. Australian Biological Resources Study ; University of Western Australia Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780642568168.
Gosper_201266C. R. Gosper, C. J. Yates, and S. M. Prober. “Changes in plant species and functional composition with time since fire in two mediterranean climate plant communities”. Journal of Vegetation Science 23.6 (2012), pp. 1071-1081. doi: 10.1111/j.1654-1103.2012.01434.x.
Burrows_2008_244N. D. Burrows, G. Wardell-Johnson, and B. Ward. “Post-fire juvenile period of plants in south-west Australia forests and implications for fire management”. Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 91 (2008), pp. 163-174. ISSN: 0035922X. url: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/19156 (visited on 03/27/2025).
Burrows_202044N. Burrows. Data from 'Plant Ecological Attributes' theme, NatureMap, DBCA, WA. 2020.
Pekin_201144B. K. Pekin, R. S. Wittkuhn, M. M. Boer, C. Macfarlane, and P. F. Grierson. “Plant functional traits along environmental gradients in seasonally dry and fire-prone ecosystem”. Journal of Vegetation Science 22 (2011), pp. 1009-1020. doi: 10.1111/j.1654-1103.2011.01323.x.
Sjostrom_200644A. Sjöström and C. L. Gross. “Life-history characters and phylogeny are correlated with extinction risk in the Australian angiosperms”. Journal of Biogeography 33.2 (2006), pp. 271-290. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2005.01393.x.
WAH_2022_244Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Clarke_201533P. J. Clarke, M. J. Lawes, B. P. Murphy, J. Russell-Smith, C. E. Nano, R. Bradstock, N. J. Enright, J. B. Fontaine, C. R. Gosper, I. Radford, J. J. Midgley, and R. M. Gunton. “A synthesis of postfire recovery traits of woody plants in Australian ecosystems”. Science of The Total Environment 534 (2015), pp. 31-42. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.04.002.
Sweedman_200613L. Sweedman and D. Merritt. Australian Seeds: A Guide to Their Collection, Identification, and Biology. CSIRO Publishing, 2006. ISBN: 9780643094079.
WAH_2023_212Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Wenk_202222E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant growth forms dataset”. 2022.
Collette_202111J. C. Collette and M. K. J. Ooi. “Distribution of seed dormancy classes across a fire-prone continent: effects of rainfall seasonality and temperature”. Annals of Botany 127.5 (2021), pp. 613-620. doi: 10.1093/aob/mcaa203.
Hutton_199411B. J. Hutton, K. W. Dixon, and K. Sivasithamparam. “Ericoid endophytes of Western Australian heaths (Epacridaceae)”. New Phytologist 127.3 (1994), pp. 557-566. ISSN: 1469-8137. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.1994.tb03974.x.
Kew_2019_111Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Seed Information Database (SID) and Seed Bank Database. 2019. url: http://data.kew.org/sid/.
WAH_199811Western Australian Herbarium. FloraBase: The Western Australian flora. 1998. url: http://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au.
Wenk_202311E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant life history dataset, University of New South Wales, Sydney”. 2023.