Spermacoce stenophylla

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Family Rubiaceae

Taxonomy: Spermacoce stenophylla F.Muell.

Synonyms: 4 (APC 2026-07-30)

Borreria carpentariae Specht (nomenclatural synonym)
Borreria exserta K.Schum. (taxonomic synonym)
Spermacoce exserta Benth. (taxonomic synonym)
Spermacoce islana Govaerts (taxonomic synonym)

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), Lord_1997 (3), NTH_2022 (4), NTH_2023 (14), Nano_2011 (2), Sjostrom_2006 (4), WAH_1998 (1), WAH_2022_2 (3), WAH_2023_2 (2), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1), eFLOWER_Dun_2022 (16). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 37 traits from 55 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 (2) [sources: Crowley_2007; Nano_2011]

flower morphology

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

fruit morphology

fruit_type (categorical): capsule (2) [sources: NTH_2023; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_fleshiness (categorical): dry (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_dehiscence (categorical): dehiscent (2) [sources: NTH_2023; Sjostrom_2006]

leaf morphology

leaf_length (numerical): 55 mm (20-90 mm) [sources: NTH_2023]
leaf_width (numerical): 5.5 mm (1-10 mm) [sources: NTH_2023]
leaf_shape (categorical): linear (1); narrowly_elliptical (1) [sources: NTH_2023]
plant_photosynthetic_organ (categorical): leaf (1) [sources: NTH_2023]

life history

plant_growth_form (categorical): herb (4) [sources: Lord_1997; NTH_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
life_history (categorical): annual (2); perennial (2) [sources: NTH_2022; Wenk_2023]
woodiness_detailed (categorical): herbaceous (3) [sources: NTH_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
stem_growth_habit (categorical): erect (2); prostrate (1) [sources: NTH_2022; WAH_2022_2]
dispersal_syndrome (categorical): barochory (1) [sources: Lord_1997]
flowering_time (categorical): nnyyyyyyyyyn (1) [sources: WAH_1998]
bud_bank_location (categorical): none (2) [sources: Crowley_2007; Nano_2011]

seed morphology

seed_dry_mass (numerical): 0.56 mg (0.5-0.62 mg) [sources: Kew_2019_1; Lord_1997]
seed_length (numerical): 1.8 mm (1.8-1.8 mm) [sources: NTH_2023]
seed_width (numerical): 0.8 mm (0.8-0.8 mm) [sources: NTH_2023]
seed_shape (categorical): ellipsoid (1); ovoid (1) [sources: NTH_2023]

whole plant morphology

plant_height (numerical): 0.74 m (0.25-1 m) [sources: NTH_2023; WAH_2023_2]

Sources

dataset_id	n_traits	n_records	reference
eFLOWER_Dun_2022	14	16	L. Dun and H. Sauquet. “Unpublished: Floral traits for GAP taxa, University of New South Wales, Australia”. 2022.
NTH_2023	12	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/.
NTH_2022	4	4	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/.
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.
Lord_1997	3	3	J. Lord, J. Egan, T. Clifford, E. Jurado, M. Leishman, D. Williams, and M. Westoby. “Larger seeds in tropical floras: Consistent patterns independent of growth form and dispersal mode”. Journal of Biogeography 24 (1997), pp. 205-211. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2699.1997.00126.x.
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/.
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).
Nano_2011	2	2	C. 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_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.
Kew_2019_1	1	1	Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Seed Information Database (SID) and Seed Bank Database. 2019. url: http://data.kew.org/sid/.
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.