Maireana spongiocarpa

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Family Chenopodiaceae

Taxonomy: Maireana spongiocarpa (F.Muell.) Paul G.Wilson

Synonyms: 1 (APC 2026-07-30)

Kochia spongiocarpa F.Muell. (nomenclatural synonym)

Distribution (APC): NT, SA, Qld, NSW

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

Traits

Top source datasets: ABRS_2022 (3), ABRS_2023 (8), Draper_2023 (3), Kew_2019_1 (2), Kew_2019_6 (3), Munroe_2019 (1), NHNSW_2014_2 (4), NHNSW_2022 (5), NHNSW_2023 (5), NTH_2022 (3), NTH_2023 (10), SAH_2022 (3), SAH_2023 (8), Sjostrom_2006 (3), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1), White_2020 (19). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 39 traits from 83 records in 17 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): fire_killed (1) [sources: White_2020]

flower morphology

flower_colour (categorical): red_brown (1) [sources: NHNSW_2014_2]
sex_type (categorical): dioecious (1) [sources: NHNSW_2022]

fruit morphology

fruit_width (numerical): 11.5 mm (9-14 mm) [sources: NTH_2023]
fruit_type (categorical): nutlet (1); utricle (3) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; SAH_2023; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_fleshiness (categorical): dry (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_dehiscence (categorical): indehiscent (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]

leaf morphology

leaf_length (numerical): 13.5 mm (6-26 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; NTH_2023; SAH_2023]
leaf_width (numerical): 2 mm (1-3 mm) [sources: NTH_2023]
leaf_shape (categorical): linear (1); oblong (1); terete (2) [sources: NHNSW_2023; NTH_2023]
leaf_margin (categorical): entire (1) [sources: NHNSW_2014_2]
leaf_compoundness (categorical): simple (3) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2014_2; SAH_2023]
leaf_phyllotaxis (categorical): alternate (4) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2014_2; NTH_2023; SAH_2023]
leaf_arrangement (categorical): scattered (2) [sources: ABRS_2023; SAH_2023]
plant_photosynthetic_organ (categorical): leaf (4) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; NTH_2023; SAH_2023]

life history

photosynthetic_pathway (categorical): c3 (1); c4 (1) [sources: Munroe_2019; White_2020]
plant_growth_form (categorical): herb (1); shrub (5); subshrub (1) [sources: ABRS_2022; NHNSW_2022; NTH_2022; SAH_2022; Wenk_2022; White_2020]
life_history (categorical): perennial (4) [sources: ABRS_2022; NHNSW_2022; SAH_2022; Wenk_2023]
woodiness_detailed (categorical): herbaceous (1); woody (4) [sources: ABRS_2022; NHNSW_2022; NTH_2022; SAH_2022; Wenk_2022]
stem_growth_habit (categorical): erect (1); spreading (2) [sources: NHNSW_2022; NTH_2022]
nitrogen_fixing (categorical): non_nitrogen_fixer (1) [sources: White_2020]
parasitic (categorical): not_parasitic (1) [sources: White_2020]
pollination_syndrome (categorical): abiotic (1); wind (1) [sources: Draper_2023; White_2020]
dispersal_syndrome (categorical): anemochory (2); barochory (1) [sources: Draper_2023; White_2020]
dispersers (categorical): passive (1); wind (2) [sources: Draper_2023; White_2020]
flowering_time (categorical): yyyynnnnnnnn (1) [sources: White_2020]
seedbank_longevity_class (categorical): persistent (1) [sources: White_2020]
vegetative_reproduction_ability (categorical): not_vegetative (1) [sources: White_2020]

seed morphology

seed_dry_mass (numerical): 19.35 mg (18.29-20.4 mg) [sources: Kew_2019_1]

whole plant morphology

plant_height (numerical): 0.3 m (0.3-0.3 m) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; NTH_2023; SAH_2023]
plant_physical_defence_structures (categorical): absent (1) [sources: White_2020]

Sources

dataset_id	n_traits	n_records	reference
White_2020	19	19	M. White, S. Sinclair, and D. Frood. Victorian Vital Attributes Database. database. Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Victoria, 2020.
NTH_2023	7	10	D. of Land Resource Management and N. T. of Australia. Northern Territory Flora Online. accessed on 6 May, 2022.. 2022. url: http://eflora.nt.gov.au/.
ABRS_2023	7	8	Australian Biological Resources Study. Flora of Australia, Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: http://www.ausflora.org.au.
SAH_2023	7	8	S. H. of South Australia. eFlora of SA, Electronic Flora of South Australia. accessed on 6 May, 2022.. 2022. url: http://www.flora.sa.gov.au/.
NHNSW_2022	5	5	N. H. of New South Wales. The Plant Information Network System of The Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust Version 2.0.. accessed on 6 May, 2022.. 2022. url: https://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/.
NHNSW_2023	5	5	N. H. of New South Wales. The Plant Information Network System of The Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust Version 2.0.. accessed on 6 May, 2022.. 2023. url: https://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/.
NHNSW_2014_2	4	4	Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney. PLantNET: NSW flora online. 2014. url: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/.
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.
Draper_2023	3	3	J. T. Draper, S. Delean, J. G. Conran, P. Weinstein, and B. S. Simpson. “Life-history characteristics and climate correlates of dioecious plant species in central southern Australia”. Australian Journal of Botany unknown.unknown (2023), p. unknown. doi: 10.1071/BT22110.
Kew_2019_6	1	3	Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Germination data from the Seed Information Database (SID) and Seed Bank Database. 2019. url: http://data.kew.org/sid/.
NTH_2022	3	3	D. of Land Resource Management and N. T. of Australia. Northern Territory Flora Online. accessed on 6 May, 2022.. 2022. url: http://eflora.nt.gov.au/.
SAH_2022	3	3	S. H. of South Australia. eFlora of SA, Electronic Flora of South Australia. accessed on 6 May, 2022.. 2022. url: http://www.flora.sa.gov.au/.
Sjostrom_2006	3	3	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.
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.
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.
Wenk_2023	1	1	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant life history dataset, University of New South Wales, Sydney”. 2023.