Mesomelaena stygia

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Family Cyperaceae

Taxonomy: Mesomelaena stygia (R.Br.) Nees

Synonyms: 3 (APC 2026-07-30)

Chaetospora stygia R.Br. (nomenclatural synonym)
Mesomelaena stygia var. β Nees (doubtful taxonomic synonym)
Schoenus stygius (R.Br.) Poir. (nomenclatural synonym)

Distribution (APC): WA

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

Traits

Top source datasets: ABRS_2022 (3), ABRS_2023 (10), Burrows_2008_2 (4), Burrows_2020 (4), Munroe_2019 (1), Pekin_2011 (5), Sjostrom_2006 (4), WAH_1998 (1), WAH_2022_2 (3), WAH_2023_2 (2), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1), Wheeler_2002 (8), vanderMoezel_1987 (1). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 24 traits from 49 records in 14 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 (4) [sources: Burrows_2008_2; Burrows_2020; Pekin_2011; vanderMoezel_1987]
fire_time_from_fire_to_flowering (numerical): 18 mo (18-18 mo) [sources: Burrows_2020]

flower morphology

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

fruit morphology

fruit_length (numerical): 3 mm (2.5-3.5 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023]
fruit_width (numerical): 1.4 mm (1.1-1.7 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023]
fruit_height (numerical): 1.4 mm (1.1-1.7 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023]
fruit_type (categorical): nut (1); nutlet (1) [sources: ABRS_2023; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_fleshiness (categorical): dry (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_dehiscence (categorical): indehiscent (2) [sources: ABRS_2023; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_colour (categorical): white (1) [sources: ABRS_2023]

leaf morphology

leaf_length (numerical): 30 mm (30-30 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023; Wheeler_2002]
leaf_width (numerical): 0.2 mm (0.2-0.2 mm) [sources: Wheeler_2002]
leaf_shape (categorical): linear (1) [sources: Wheeler_2002]
leaf_lobation (categorical): unlobed (1) [sources: Wheeler_2002]
leaf_compoundness (categorical): simple (1) [sources: Wheeler_2002]

life history

photosynthetic_pathway (categorical): c3 (1) [sources: Munroe_2019]
plant_growth_form (categorical): graminoid (3); herb (3) [sources: ABRS_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022; Wheeler_2002]
life_history (categorical): perennial (7) [sources: ABRS_2022; Burrows_2008_2; Burrows_2020; Pekin_2011; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2023; Wheeler_2002]
woodiness_detailed (categorical): herbaceous (3) [sources: ABRS_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
nitrogen_fixing (categorical): non_nitrogen_fixer (1) [sources: Pekin_2011]
root_structure (categorical): non_mycorrhizal (1) [sources: Pekin_2011]
flowering_time (categorical): nnyyyyyyyynn (1) [sources: WAH_1998]
bud_bank_location (categorical): bud-bearing_root (2); fleshy_underground_organ (1) [sources: Burrows_2008_2; Burrows_2020; Pekin_2011]

whole plant morphology

plant_height (numerical): 0.4 m (0.1-0.5 m) [sources: WAH_2023_2; Wheeler_2002]

Sources

dataset_id	n_traits	n_records	reference
ABRS_2023	7	10	Australian Biological Resources Study. Flora of Australia, Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: http://www.ausflora.org.au.
Wheeler_2002	8	8	J. 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.
Pekin_2011	5	5	B. 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.
Burrows_2008_2	4	4	N. 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_2020	4	4	N. Burrows. Data from 'Plant Ecological Attributes' theme, NatureMap, DBCA, WA. 2020.
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.
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/.
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.
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.
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.
vanderMoezel_1987	1	1	P. G. van der Moezel, W. A. Loneragan, and D. T. Bell. “Northern Sandplain Kwongan - regeneration following fire, juvenile period and flowering phenology”. Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 69.4 (1987), pp. 123-132.