AusTraits

Nauclea orientalis

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Family Rubiaceae

Taxonomy: Nauclea orientalis (L.) L.

Synonyms: 22 (APC 2026-07-30)
  • Bancalus grandifolius Kuntze (taxonomic synonym)
  • Bancalus orientalis (L.) Kuntze (nomenclatural synonym)
  • Cadamba nocturna Buch.-Ham. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Cephalanthus orientalis L. (nomenclatural synonym)
  • Nauclea coadunata Roxb. ex Sm. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Nauclea cordata Roxb. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Nauclea glaberrima Bartl. ex DC. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Nauclea grandifolia DC. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Nauclea leichardtii Ridsdale (taxonomic synonym)
  • Nauclea macrophylla Blume (taxonomic synonym)
  • Nauclea roxburghii G.Don (taxonomic synonym)
  • Nauclea undulata Roxb. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Nauclea wallichiana R.Br. ex G.Don (taxonomic synonym)
  • Platanocarpum cordatum (Roxb.) Korth. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Sarcocephalis coadunatus Druce (taxonomic synonym)
  • Sarcocephalus coadunatus (Roxb. ex Sm.) Druce (taxonomic synonym)
  • Sarcocephalus cordatus (Roxb.) Miq. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Sarcocephalus glaberrimus (Bartl. ex DC.) Miq. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Sarcocephalus leichharditii F.Muell. (taxonomic synonym)
  • Sarcocephalus orientalis (L.) Merr. (nomenclatural synonym)
  • Sarcocephalus papagola Domin (taxonomic synonym)
  • Sarcocephalus undulatus (Roxb.) Miq. (taxonomic synonym)
Misapplied names: 1 (APC 2026-07-30)
  • Sarcocephalus bartlingii (DC.) Miq. (misapplied)

Distribution (APC): WA, NT, Qld

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

Traits

Top source datasets: Brock_1993 (12), Cooper_2013 (14), Crowley_2007 (2), Gross_2005 (2), Ilic_2000 (3), Kew_2019_1 (1), Kew_2019_6 (1), Kooyman_2011 (12), Metcalfe_2009 (18), Nano_2011 (2), RussellSmith_2012 (4), Sjostrom_2006 (4), WAH_1998 (1), WAH_2022_2 (3), WAH_2023_2 (1), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1), Wright_2000 (6), Zanne_2009 (4), eFLOWER_Dun_2022 (21). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 59 traits from 114 records in 20 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: Crowley_2007; Metcalfe_2009; Nano_2011; RussellSmith_2012]
flower morphology
  • sex_type (categorical): hermaphrodite (2) [sources: Gross_2005; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit morphology
  • fruit_length (numerical): 45 mm (40-50 mm) [sources: Cooper_2013]
  • fruit_width (numerical): 45 mm (40-50 mm) [sources: Cooper_2013]
  • fruit_type (categorical): drupe (1); multiple_fruit (1); syconium (1) [sources: Cooper_2013; Gross_2005; Sjostrom_2006]
  • fruit_fleshiness (categorical): fleshy (3) [sources: Cooper_2013; Metcalfe_2009; Sjostrom_2006]
  • fruit_dehiscence (categorical): indehiscent (2) [sources: Cooper_2013; Sjostrom_2006]
leaf morphology
  • leaf_area (numerical): 32400 mm2 (32400-32400 mm2) [sources: Metcalfe_2009]
  • leaf_length (numerical): 146.25 mm (70-300 mm) [sources: Brock_1993; Kooyman_2011]
  • leaf_width (numerical): 127.5 mm (70-180 mm) [sources: Brock_1993; Kooyman_2011]
  • leaf_shape (categorical): elliptical (1) [sources: Brock_1993]
  • leaf_lobation (categorical): unlobed (1) [sources: Kooyman_2011]
  • leaf_compoundness (categorical): simple (2) [sources: Brock_1993; Kooyman_2011]
life history
  • photosynthetic_pathway (categorical): c3 (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2009]
  • plant_growth_form (categorical): tree (6) [sources: Brock_1993; Cooper_2013; Kooyman_2011; Metcalfe_2009; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
  • life_form (categorical): phanerophyte (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2009]
  • life_history (categorical): perennial (4) [sources: Brock_1993; Metcalfe_2009; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2023]
  • woodiness_detailed (categorical): woody (2) [sources: WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
  • leaf_phenology (categorical): deciduous (1); evergreen (1) [sources: Brock_1993; Kooyman_2011]
  • nitrogen_fixing (categorical): non_nitrogen_fixer (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2009]
  • root_structure (categorical): mycorrhizal (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2009]
  • pollination_syndrome (categorical): fly (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2009]
  • dispersal_syndrome (categorical): endozoochory (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2009]
  • dispersers (categorical): bats (1); cassowaries (1) [sources: Cooper_2013]
  • flowering_time (categorical): nnnnnnnnyyyy (1); nnnnyyyyyyyn (1); yyynnnnnyyyy (1) [sources: Brock_1993; Cooper_2013; WAH_1998]
  • seedbank_longevity_class (categorical): persistent (1); transient (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2009; RussellSmith_2012]
  • clonal_spread_mechanism (categorical): non_clonal (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2009]
  • bud_bank_location (categorical): basal_stem_buds (2); epicormic_buds (2) [sources: Crowley_2007; Nano_2011]
seed morphology
  • seed_dry_mass (numerical): 0.29 mg (0.19-0.39 mg) [sources: Kew_2019_1; Metcalfe_2009]
  • seed_length (numerical): 2 mm (2-2 mm) [sources: Cooper_2013; Kooyman_2011]
  • seed_width (numerical): 1 mm (1-1 mm) [sources: Kooyman_2011]
stem morphology
  • wood_density (numerical): 0.47 mg/mm3 (0.46-0.5 mg/mm3) [sources: Ilic_2000; Kooyman_2011; Metcalfe_2009; Zanne_2009]
whole plant morphology

Sources

dataset_idn_traitsn_recordsreference
eFLOWER_Dun_20221621L. Dun and H. Sauquet. “Unpublished: Floral traits for GAP taxa, University of New South Wales, Australia”. 2022.
Metcalfe_20091818E. Laliberte, J. A. Wells, F. DeClerck, D. J. Metcalfe, C. P. Catterall, C. Queiroz, I. Aubin, S. P. Bonser, Y. Ding, J. M. Fraterrigo, S. McNamara, J. W. Morgan, D. S. Merlos, P. A. Vesk, and M. M. Mayfield. “Land-use intensification reduces functional redundancy and response diversity in plant communities”. Ecology Letters 13.1 (2010), pp. 76-86. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01403.x.
Cooper_20131114W. Cooper and W. T. Cooper. Australian rainforest fruits. CSIRO Publishing, 2013, p. 272.
Brock_1993912J. Brock and A. Dunlop. Native plants of northern Australia. Reed New Holland, 1993. ISBN: 9781877069246.
Kooyman_2011912R. 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.
Wright_200056I. J. Wright, H. T. Clifford, R. Kidson, M. L. Reed, B. L. Rice, and M. Westoby. “A survey of seed and seedling characters in 1744 Australian dicotyledon species: Cross-species trait correlations and correlated trait-shifts within evolutionary lineages”. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 69 (2000), pp. 521-547. doi: 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2000.tb01222.x.
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.
Zanne_200914A. E. Zanne, G. Lopez-Gonzalez, D. A. Coomes, J. Ilic, S. Jansen, S. L. Lewis, R. B. Miller, N. G. Swenson, M. C. Wiemann, and J. Chave. “Data from: Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum”. Dryad Digital Repository (2009). doi: 10.5061/dryad.234.
Ilic_200013J. 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.
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).
Gross_200522C. 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.
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.
Wenk_202222E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant growth forms dataset”. 2022.
Kew_2019_111Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Seed Information Database (SID) and Seed Bank Database. 2019. url: http://data.kew.org/sid/.
Kew_2019_611Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Germination data from the Seed Information Database (SID) and Seed Bank Database. 2019. url: http://data.kew.org/sid/.
WAH_199811Western Australian Herbarium. FloraBase: The Western Australian flora. 1998. url: http://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au.
WAH_2023_211Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Wenk_202311E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant life history dataset, University of New South Wales, Sydney”. 2023.