Cartonema spicatum

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Family Commelinaceae

Taxonomy: Cartonema spicatum R.Br.

Synonyms: none listed in the APC 2026-07-30

Distribution (APC): WA, NT, Qld

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

Traits

Top source datasets: Brock_1993 (10), Crowley_2007 (2), Kew_2019_1 (1), Kew_2019_6 (2), Lord_1997 (3), Munroe_2019 (1), Nano_2011 (2), Rice_1991 (1), Schmidt_2003 (19), Sjostrom_2006 (4), WAH_1998 (1), WAH_2022_2 (3), WAH_2023_2 (2), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 26 traits from 54 records in 15 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

resprouting_capacity (categorical): resprouts (3) [sources: Crowley_2007; Nano_2011; Schmidt_2003]

flower morphology

sex_type (categorical): hermaphrodite (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]

fruit morphology

fruit_type (categorical): capsule (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_fleshiness (categorical): dry (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_dehiscence (categorical): dehiscent (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]

leaf morphology

leaf_length (numerical): 200 mm (150-250 mm) [sources: Brock_1993]
leaf_width (numerical): 5.5 mm (4-7 mm) [sources: Brock_1993]
leaf_shape (categorical): ovate (1) [sources: Brock_1993]
leaf_compoundness (categorical): simple (1) [sources: Brock_1993]

life history

photosynthetic_pathway (categorical): c3 (2) [sources: Munroe_2019; Schmidt_2003]
plant_growth_form (categorical): graminoid (1); herb (6) [sources: Brock_1993; Lord_1997; Rice_1991; Schmidt_2003; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
life_history (categorical): perennial (4) [sources: Brock_1993; Schmidt_2003; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2023]
woodiness_detailed (categorical): herbaceous (2) [sources: WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
leaf_phenology (categorical): evergreen (1) [sources: Schmidt_2003]
nitrogen_fixing (categorical): non_nitrogen_fixer (1) [sources: Schmidt_2003]
root_structure (categorical): non_mycorrhizal (1) [sources: Schmidt_2003]
dispersal_syndrome (categorical): barochory (1) [sources: Lord_1997]
flowering_time (categorical): yyynnnnnnnnn (1); yyyyyyynnnnn (1) [sources: Brock_1993; WAH_1998]
bud_bank_location (categorical): basal_stem_buds (2) [sources: Crowley_2007; Nano_2011]

nutrient and stable isotope

leaf_N_per_dry_mass (numerical): 12.5 mg/g (11-14 mg/g) [sources: Schmidt_2003]
leaf_delta13C (numerical): -29.62 {delta}[ppth] (-29.7--29.54 {delta}[ppth]) [sources: Schmidt_2003]

seed morphology

seed_dry_mass (numerical): 1.65 mg (1.4-1.91 mg) [sources: Kew_2019_1; Lord_1997]

whole plant morphology

plant_height (numerical): 0.26 m (0.1-0.35 m) [sources: Brock_1993; WAH_2023_2]

Sources

dataset_id	n_traits	n_records	reference
Schmidt_2003	11	19	S. Schmidt and G. R. Stewart. “d15N values of tropical savanna and monsoon forest species reflect root specialisations and soil nitrogen status”. Oecologia 134 (2003), pp. 569-577. doi: 10.1007/s00442-002-1150-y.
Brock_1993	8	10	J. Brock and A. Dunlop. Native plants of northern Australia. Reed New Holland, 1993. ISBN: 9781877069246.
Sjostrom_2006	4	4	A. 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.
Lord_1997	3	3	J. Lord, J. Egan, T. Clifford, E. Jurado, M. Leishman, D. Williams, and M. Westoby. “Larger seeds in tropical floras: Consistent patterns independent of growth form and dispersal mode”. Journal of Biogeography 24 (1997), pp. 205-211. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2699.1997.00126.x.
WAH_2022_2	3	3	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Crowley_2007	2	2	G. Crowley, M. Gardener, and M. Marrinan. Tropical savannas fire response database. 2007. url: [www.landmanager.org.au](www.landmanager.org.au).
Kew_2019_6	1	2	Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Germination data from the Seed Information Database (SID) and Seed Bank Database. 2019. url: http://data.kew.org/sid/.
Nano_2011	2	2	C. E. M. Nano and P. J. Clarke. “How do drought and fire influence the patterns of resprouting in Australian deserts?”. Plant Ecology 212 (2011), pp. 2095-2110. doi: 10.1007/s11258-011-9988-x.
WAH_2023_2	1	2	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Wenk_2022	2	2	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant growth forms dataset”. 2022.
Kew_2019_1	1	1	Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Seed Information Database (SID) and Seed Bank Database. 2019. url: http://data.kew.org/sid/.
Munroe_2019	1	1	S. E. M. Munroe, F. A. McInerney, J. Andrae, N. Welti, G. R. Guerin, E. Leitch, T. Hall, S. Szarvas, R. Atkins, S. Caddy-Retalic, and B. Sparrow. “The Photosynthetic Pathways of Plant Species Surveyed in Australia's National Terrestrial Monitoring Network”. Scientific Data 8 (2021), p. 97. doi: 10.1038/s41597-021-00877-z.
Rice_1991	1	1	B. Rice. “Unpublished data: Growth form of Kakadu plant species, Macquarie University”. 1991.
WAH_1998	1	1	Western Australian Herbarium. FloraBase: The Western Australian flora. 1998. url: http://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au.
Wenk_2023	1	1	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant life history dataset, University of New South Wales, Sydney”. 2023.