Cordyline rubra

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Family Asparagaceae

Taxonomy: Cordyline rubra Otto & A.Dietr.

Synonyms: 1 (APC 2026-07-30)

Terminalis rubra (Otto & A.Dietr.) Kuntze (nomenclatural synonym)

Distribution (APC): Qld, NSW

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

Traits

Top source datasets: ABRS_1981 (2), ABRS_2022 (3), ABRS_2023 (13), Benwell_2024 (4), Butler_2004 (4), Chen_2017 (4), Clarke_2015 (2), Cooper_2013 (1), Kew_2019_1 (2), NHNSW_2014_2 (9), NHNSW_2024 (13), Sjostrom_2006 (4), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1), eFLOWER_Dun_2022 (12). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 45 traits from 76 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): partial_resprouting (1); resprouts (1) [sources: Benwell_2024; Clarke_2015]
post_fire_recruitment (categorical): post_fire_recruitment (1); post_fire_recruitment_absent (1) [sources: Benwell_2024; Clarke_2015]

flower morphology

flower_colour (categorical): blue_purple (1) [sources: NHNSW_2014_2]
sex_type (categorical): hermaphrodite (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]

fruit morphology

fruit_type (categorical): berry (3) [sources: ABRS_2023; Chen_2017; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_fleshiness (categorical): fleshy (2) [sources: Chen_2017; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_dehiscence (categorical): indehiscent (2) [sources: Chen_2017; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_colour (categorical): red (2) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2024]

leaf morphology

leaf_length (numerical): 325 mm (150-500 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2014_2; NHNSW_2024]
leaf_width (numerical): 36.33 mm (3-55 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2014_2; NHNSW_2024]
petiole_length (numerical): 12.5 cm (5-20 cm) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2024]
leaf_type (categorical): broadleaf (1) [sources: NHNSW_2024]
leaf_shape (categorical): narrowly_elliptical (1) [sources: NHNSW_2024]
leaf_base_shape (categorical): attenuate (2) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2024]
leaf_margin (categorical): entire (1) [sources: NHNSW_2014_2]
leaf_compoundness (categorical): simple (2) [sources: ABRS_1981; NHNSW_2014_2]
leaf_lamina_posture (categorical): flat (1); involute (1) [sources: NHNSW_2024]
leaf_arrangement (categorical): crowded (1) [sources: ABRS_2023]
plant_photosynthetic_organ (categorical): leaf (2) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2024]

life history

plant_growth_form (categorical): shrub (4); tree (1) [sources: ABRS_2022; Butler_2004; Cooper_2013; Wenk_2022]
life_history (categorical): perennial (2) [sources: ABRS_2022; Wenk_2023]
woodiness_detailed (categorical): woody (2) [sources: ABRS_2022; Wenk_2022]
stem_growth_habit (categorical): prostrate (1) [sources: NHNSW_2014_2]
leaf_phenology (categorical): evergreen (1) [sources: ABRS_1981]
dispersal_syndrome (categorical): endozoochory (1) [sources: Butler_2004]
dispersers (categorical): vertebrates (1) [sources: Butler_2004]
seedbank_location (categorical): soil_seedbank (1) [sources: Benwell_2024]

seed morphology

seed_dry_mass (numerical): 12.46 mg (8.9-16.02 mg) [sources: Kew_2019_1]

whole plant morphology

plant_height (numerical): 4 m (4-4 m) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2014_2; NHNSW_2024]

Sources

dataset_id	n_traits	n_records	reference
ABRS_2023	10	13	Australian Biological Resources Study. Flora of Australia, Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: http://www.ausflora.org.au.
NHNSW_2024	10	13	N. H. of New South Wales. The Plant Information Network System of The Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust Version 2.0.. accessed on December, 2023.. 2024. url: https://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/.
eFLOWER_Dun_2022	12	12	L. Dun and H. Sauquet. “Unpublished: Floral traits for GAP taxa, University of New South Wales, Australia”. 2022.
NHNSW_2014_2	7	9	Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney. PLantNET: NSW flora online. 2014. url: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/.
Benwell_2024	4	4	A. Benwell. “Fire responses of flora in a sclerophyll-rainforest vegetation complex in the Nightcap Range, North Coast, New South Wales”. Australian Journal of Botany 72.1 (2024). Ed. by D. Williams. ISSN: 1444-9862. doi: 10.1071/bt23049.
Butler_2004	4	4	D. W. Butler, R. J. Green, D. Lamb, W. J. F. Mcdonald, and P. I. Forster. “Biogeography of seed-dispersal syndromes, life-forms and seed sizes among woody rain-forest plants in Australia's subtropics”. Journal of Biogeography 34.10 (2007), pp. 1736-1750. ISSN: 1365-2699. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2007.01734.x.
Chen_2017	4	4	Chen, S.-C., Cornwell, W., Z. H.-X., Moles, and A. T. “Plants show more flesh in the tropics: Variation in fruit type along latitudinal and climatic gradients.”. Ecography 40 (2017), pp. 531-538. doi: abs/10.1111/ecog.02010.
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.
ABRS_2022	3	3	Australian Biological Resources Study. Flora of Australia, Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: http://www.ausflora.org.au.
ABRS_1981	2	2	B. A. Barlow, H. T. Clifford, A. S. George, and A. K. A. McCusker. Flora of Australia. 1981. url: http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/online-resources/flora/main/.
Clarke_2015	2	2	P. 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.
Kew_2019_1	1	2	Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Seed Information Database (SID) and Seed Bank Database. 2019. url: http://data.kew.org/sid/.
Wenk_2022	2	2	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant growth forms dataset”. 2022.
Cooper_2013	1	1	W. Cooper and W. T. Cooper. Australian rainforest fruits. CSIRO Publishing, 2013, p. 272.
Wenk_2023	1	1	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant life history dataset, University of New South Wales, Sydney”. 2023.