AusTraits

Melaleuca argentea

Explore the data for this taxon in the portal

Family Myrtaceae

Taxonomy: Melaleuca argentea W.Fitzg.

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: ATRP_2020 (1), Brock_1993 (12), Canham_2023 (106), Cooper_2013 (11), Crowley_2007 (2), Gross_2005 (4), Ilic_2000 (1), Kew_2019_1 (2), Kooyman_2011 (10), Munroe_2019 (1), NTH_2014 (4), NTH_2022 (4), NTH_2023 (12), Nano_2011 (2), RussellSmith_2012 (4), 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 41 traits from 189 records in 21 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; RussellSmith_2012]
flower morphology
  • sex_type (categorical): hermaphrodite (2) [sources: Gross_2005; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit morphology
  • fruit_length (numerical): 3.38 mm (2.5-4 mm) [sources: Cooper_2013; NTH_2023]
  • fruit_width (numerical): 3.75 mm (3-5 mm) [sources: Cooper_2013; NTH_2023]
  • fruit_type (categorical): capsule (4) [sources: Cooper_2013; Gross_2005; NTH_2023; Sjostrom_2006]
  • fruit_fleshiness (categorical): dry (3) [sources: Cooper_2013; Gross_2005; Sjostrom_2006]
  • fruit_dehiscence (categorical): dehiscent (3) [sources: Cooper_2013; Gross_2005; Sjostrom_2006]
leaf morphology
  • leaf_length (numerical): 76.67 mm (40-140 mm) [sources: Brock_1993; Kooyman_2011; NTH_2023]
  • leaf_width (numerical): 13.5 mm (6-22 mm) [sources: Brock_1993; NTH_2023]
  • petiole_length (numerical): 0.5 cm (0.5-0.5 cm) [sources: NTH_2023]
  • leaf_mass_per_area (numerical): 198.85 g/m2 (158.16-228.07 g/m2) [sources: Canham_2023]
  • leaf_dry_matter_content (numerical): 0.48 g/g (0.41-0.54 g/g) [sources: Canham_2023]
  • leaf_shape (categorical): elliptical (1); narrowly_elliptical (1) [sources: Brock_1993; NTH_2023]
  • leaf_lobation (categorical): unlobed (1) [sources: Kooyman_2011]
  • leaf_compoundness (categorical): simple (3) [sources: Brock_1993; Kooyman_2011; NTH_2014]
  • plant_photosynthetic_organ (categorical): leaf (1) [sources: NTH_2023]
life history
  • photosynthetic_pathway (categorical): c3 (1) [sources: Munroe_2019]
  • plant_growth_form (categorical): shrub (1); tree (7) [sources: ATRP_2020; Brock_1993; Cooper_2013; Kooyman_2011; NTH_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
  • life_history (categorical): perennial (4) [sources: Brock_1993; NTH_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2023]
  • woodiness_detailed (categorical): woody (3) [sources: NTH_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
  • stem_growth_habit (categorical): spreading (1) [sources: NTH_2022]
  • leaf_phenology (categorical): evergreen (4) [sources: Brock_1993; Canham_2023; Kooyman_2011; NTH_2014]
  • flowering_time (categorical): nnnnnnyyyynn (1); nnnnnnyyyyyn (1); nnnnnyyyyynn (1); nnnnyyyyyyyn (1) [sources: Brock_1993; Cooper_2013; NTH_2014; WAH_1998]
  • seedbank_longevity_class (categorical): transient (1) [sources: RussellSmith_2012]
  • bud_bank_location (categorical): basal_stem_buds (2); epicormic_buds (2) [sources: Crowley_2007; Nano_2011]
nutrient and stable isotope
  • leaf_N_per_dry_mass (numerical): 6.28 mg/g (4.36-9.36 mg/g) [sources: Canham_2023]
  • leaf_delta13C (numerical): -33.36 {delta}[ppth] (-36.02--30.42 {delta}[ppth]) [sources: Canham_2023]
seed morphology
  • seed_dry_mass (numerical): 0.39 mg (0.09-0.69 mg) [sources: Kew_2019_1]
  • seed_length (numerical): 1 mm (1-1 mm) [sources: Kooyman_2011]
  • seed_width (numerical): 1 mm (1-1 mm) [sources: Kooyman_2011]
stem morphology
  • wood_density (numerical): 0.73 mg/mm3 (0.53-0.87 mg/mm3) [sources: Canham_2023; Ilic_2000]
  • stem_vessel_density (numerical): 110.06 {count}/mm2 (56.8-227 {count}/mm2) [sources: Canham_2023]
  • stem_vessel_diameter (numerical): 25.6 um (19.7-41.85 um) [sources: Canham_2023]
whole plant morphology
  • plant_height (numerical): 18.88 m (3-25 m) [sources: Brock_1993; Cooper_2013; Kooyman_2011; WAH_2023_2]

Sources

dataset_idn_traitsn_recordsreference
Canham_202312106C. A. Canham, C. Woods, S. A. Setterfield, E. J. Veneklaas, F. L. Freestone, L. S. Beesley, and M. M. Douglas. “Functional traits of riparian trees in the lower Fitzroy River, Western Australia”. Ecohydrology 16.1 (2023). doi: 10.1002/eco.2488.
Brock_1993912J. Brock and A. Dunlop. Native plants of northern Australia. Reed New Holland, 1993. ISBN: 9781877069246.
NTH_2023812D. 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/.
Cooper_2013911W. Cooper and W. T. Cooper. Australian rainforest fruits. CSIRO Publishing, 2013, p. 272.
Kooyman_2011810R. Kooyman, M. Rossetto, W. Cornwell, and M. Westoby. “Phylogenetic tests of community assembly across regional to continental scales in tropical and subtropical rain forests”. Global Ecology and Biogeography 20 (2011), pp. 707-716. doi: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00641.x.
Gross_200544C. L. Gross. “A comparison of the sexual systems in the trees from the Australian tropics with other tropical biomes-more monoecy but why?”. American Journal of Botany 92.6 (2005), pp. 907-919. doi: 10.3732/ajb.92.6.907.
NTH_201444Northern Territory Herbarium. Flora of the Darwin Region Online. 2014. url: http://www.lrm.nt.gov.au/plants-and-animals/herbarium/darwin_flora_online.
NTH_202244D. 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/.
RussellSmith_201244J. Russell-Smith, M. R. Gardener, C. Brock, K. Brennan, C. P. Yates, and B. Grace. “Fire persistence traits can be used to predict vegetation response to changing fire regimes at expansive landscape scales - an Australian example”. Journal of Biogeography 39 (2012), pp. 1657-1668. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2012.02714.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_233Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Crowley_200722G. Crowley, M. Gardener, and M. Marrinan. Tropical savannas fire response database. 2007. url: [www.landmanager.org.au](www.landmanager.org.au).
Kew_2019_112Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Seed Information Database (SID) and Seed Bank Database. 2019. url: http://data.kew.org/sid/.
Nano_201122C. 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_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.
ATRP_202011F. A. Zich, B. P. Hyland, T. Whiffin, and R. A. Kerrigan. Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants, Edition 8. 2020. url: https://apps.lucidcentral.org/rainforest/text/intro/index.html.
Ilic_200011J. Ilic, D. Boland, M. McDonald, D. G, and P. Blakemore. Woody density phase 1 - State of knowledge. National Carbon Accounting System. Technical Report 18. Tech. rep. Australian Greenhouse Office, Canberra, Australia, 2000.
Munroe_201911S. 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.
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.