Ptilotus spicatus

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Family Amaranthaceae

Taxonomy: Ptilotus spicatus F.Muell. ex Benth.

Synonyms: 10 (APC 2026-07-30)

Ptilotus leianthus Domin (taxonomic synonym)
Ptilotus spicatus F.Muell. ex Benth. subsp. spicatus (nomenclatural synonym)
Ptilotus spicatus F.Muell. ex Benth. var. spicatus (nomenclatural synonym)
Ptilotus spicatus subsp. burbidgeanus Benl (taxonomic synonym)
Ptilotus spicatus subsp. leianthus (Benth.) Benl (taxonomic synonym)
Ptilotus spicatus subsp. longiceps A.D.Chapm. (taxonomic synonym)
Ptilotus spicatus var. burbidgeanus (Benl) Benl (taxonomic synonym)
Ptilotus spicatus var. leianthus Benth. (taxonomic synonym)
Ptilotus spicatus var. longiceps Benl (taxonomic synonym)
Trichinium spicatum (F.Muell. ex Benth.) Ewart & O.B.Davies (nomenclatural synonym)

Misapplied names: 1 (APC 2026-07-30)

Ptilotus corymbosus R.Br. (misapplied)

Distribution (APC): WA, NT, Qld

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

Traits

Top source datasets: Crowley_2007 (2), Kew_2019_1 (1), Kew_2019_6 (3), Munroe_2019 (1), Sjostrom_2006 (4), Sweedman_2006 (2), WAH_1998 (1), WAH_2022_1 (4), WAH_2022_2 (11), WAH_2023_1 (9), WAH_2023_2 (6), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 23 traits from 47 records in 13 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: Crowley_2007]

flower morphology

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

fruit morphology

fruit_type (categorical): utricle (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_fleshiness (categorical): dry (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_dehiscence (categorical): indehiscent (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]

leaf morphology

leaf_length (numerical): 37.5 mm (5-70 mm) [sources: WAH_2023_1]
leaf_width (numerical): 2.75 mm (0.5-5 mm) [sources: WAH_2023_1]
leaf_phyllotaxis (categorical): alternate (1) [sources: WAH_2023_1]
plant_photosynthetic_organ (categorical): leaf (1) [sources: WAH_2023_1]

life history

photosynthetic_pathway (categorical): c3 (1) [sources: Munroe_2019]
plant_growth_form (categorical): herb (5) [sources: WAH_2022_1; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
life_history (categorical): annual (5); perennial (3) [sources: WAH_2022_1; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2023]
woodiness_detailed (categorical): herbaceous (5) [sources: WAH_2022_1; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
stem_growth_habit (categorical): erect (3) [sources: WAH_2022_1; WAH_2022_2]
flowering_time (categorical): nnyyyyyynnnn (1) [sources: WAH_1998]
bud_bank_location (categorical): none (1) [sources: Crowley_2007]

seed morphology

seed_dry_mass (numerical): 0.37 mg (0.37-0.37 mg) [sources: Kew_2019_1]
seed_length (numerical): 1.4 mm (1.3-1.5 mm) [sources: WAH_2023_1]

whole plant morphology

plant_height (numerical): 0.76 m (0.25-1.5 m) [sources: WAH_2023_2]

Sources

dataset_id	n_traits	n_records	reference
WAH_2022_2	4	11	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
WAH_2023_1	6	9	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
WAH_2023_2	1	6	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
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.
WAH_2022_1	4	4	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
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/.
Crowley_2007	2	2	G. Crowley, M. Gardener, and M. Marrinan. Tropical savannas fire response database. 2007. url: [www.landmanager.org.au](www.landmanager.org.au).
Sweedman_2006	2	2	L. Sweedman and D. Merritt. Australian Seeds: A Guide to Their Collection, Identification, and Biology. CSIRO Publishing, 2006. ISBN: 9780643094079.
Wenk_2022	2	2	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant growth forms dataset”. 2022.
Kew_2019_1	1	1	Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Seed Information Database (SID) and Seed Bank Database. 2019. url: http://data.kew.org/sid/.
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.