Scaevola humilis

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Family Goodeniaceae

Taxonomy: Scaevola humilis R.Br.

Synonyms: 2 (APC 2026-07-30)

Lobelia humilis (R.Br.) Kuntze (nomenclatural synonym)
Merkusia humilis (R.Br.) de Vriese (nomenclatural synonym)

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

Scaevola aemula R.Br. (pro parte misapplied)

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_1981 (2), ABRS_2022 (4), ABRS_2023 (14), Chen_2017 (1), Kew_2019_3 (2), Munroe_2019 (1), NHNSW_2014_2 (3), NHNSW_2022 (4), NHNSW_2023 (14), NTH_2022 (3), NTH_2023 (14), SAH_2022 (3), SAH_2023 (14), Sjostrom_2006 (3), Soliveres_2012 (3), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1), White_2020 (19). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 40 traits from 107 records in 18 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): blue_purple (1); white_cream (1) [sources: NHNSW_2014_2]
sex_type (categorical): hermaphrodite (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]

fruit morphology

fruit_length (numerical): 3.69 mm (2.5-5 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; NTH_2023; SAH_2023]
fruit_width (numerical): 1.25 mm (1-1.5 mm) [sources: NTH_2023]
fruit_fleshiness (categorical): fleshy (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_dehiscence (categorical): indehiscent (5) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; NTH_2023; SAH_2023; Sjostrom_2006]

leaf morphology

leaf_length (numerical): 25.38 mm (7-50 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; NTH_2023; SAH_2023]
leaf_width (numerical): 8 mm (1-17 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; NTH_2023; SAH_2023]
leaf_shape (categorical): elliptical (4); lanceolate (1); linear (1); narrowly_obovate (2); oblanceolate (1); oblong (1); obovate (1) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; NTH_2023; SAH_2023]
leaf_base_shape (categorical): attenuate (3) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; SAH_2023]
leaf_margin (categorical): entire (2); toothed (2); toothed_dentate (2) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; NTH_2023; SAH_2023]
leaf_compoundness (categorical): simple (3) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; SAH_2023]
leaf_phyllotaxis (categorical): alternate (3) [sources: NHNSW_2014_2; NTH_2023; SAH_2023]
plant_photosynthetic_organ (categorical): leaf (4) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023; NTH_2023; SAH_2023]

life history

photosynthetic_pathway (categorical): c3 (3) [sources: Kew_2019_3; Munroe_2019; White_2020]
plant_growth_form (categorical): herb (5); subshrub (3) [sources: ABRS_2022; NHNSW_2022; NTH_2022; SAH_2022; Soliveres_2012; Wenk_2022; White_2020]
life_history (categorical): perennial (5) [sources: ABRS_2022; NHNSW_2022; NTH_2022; SAH_2022; Wenk_2023]
woodiness_detailed (categorical): herbaceous (4); woody_base (2) [sources: ABRS_2022; NHNSW_2022; SAH_2022; Wenk_2022]
stem_growth_habit (categorical): decumbent (3); spreading (1) [sources: ABRS_2022; NHNSW_2022; NTH_2022]
leaf_phenology (categorical): evergreen (1) [sources: ABRS_1981]
nitrogen_fixing (categorical): non_nitrogen_fixer (1) [sources: White_2020]
parasitic (categorical): not_parasitic (1) [sources: White_2020]
pollination_syndrome (categorical): insect (1) [sources: White_2020]
dispersal_syndrome (categorical): anemochory (1); epizoochory (1) [sources: Soliveres_2012; White_2020]
dispersers (categorical): mammals (1); wind (1) [sources: Soliveres_2012; White_2020]
flowering_time (categorical): nnnnyyyyyynn (4) [sources: ABRS_1981; Chen_2017; NHNSW_2014_2; White_2020]
seedbank_longevity_class (categorical): persistent (1) [sources: White_2020]
vegetative_reproduction_ability (categorical): not_vegetative (1) [sources: White_2020]

seed morphology

seed_shape (categorical): ovoid (2) [sources: ABRS_2023; NHNSW_2023]

whole plant morphology

plant_height (numerical): 0.41 m (0.3-0.5 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.
ABRS_2023	11	14	Australian Biological Resources Study. Flora of Australia, Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: http://www.ausflora.org.au.
NHNSW_2023	11	14	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/.
NTH_2023	10	14	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_2023	11	14	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/.
ABRS_2022	4	4	Australian Biological Resources Study. Flora of Australia, Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: http://www.ausflora.org.au.
NHNSW_2022	4	4	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_2014_2	3	3	Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney. PLantNET: NSW flora online. 2014. url: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/.
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.
Soliveres_2012	3	3	S. Soliveres, D. J. Eldridge, F. Hemmings, and F. T. Maestre. “Nurse plant effects on plant species richness in drylands: The role of grazing, rainfall and species specificity”. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 14 (2012), pp. 402-410. doi: 10.1016/j.ppees.2012.09.003.
ABRS_1981	2	2	B. A. Barlow, H. T. Clifford, A. S. George, and A. K. A. McCusker. Flora of Australia. 1981. url: http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/online-resources/flora/main/.
Kew_2019_3	2	2	Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Salt and water tolerance data from the 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.
Chen_2017	1	1	Chen, S.-C., Cornwell, W., Z. H.-X., Moles, and A. T. “Plants show more flesh in the tropics: Variation in fruit type along latitudinal and climatic gradients.”. Ecography 40 (2017), pp. 531-538. doi: abs/10.1111/ecog.02010.
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.