Sphaerolobium medium

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Family Fabaceae

Taxonomy: Sphaerolobium medium R.Br.

Synonyms: none listed in the APC 2026-07-30

Distribution (APC): WA

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

Traits

Top source datasets: Burrows_2008_2 (5), Burrows_2020 (5), Clarke_2015 (2), Collette_2021 (1), Crisp_2003 (2), Pekin_2011 (5), Sjostrom_2006 (4), Standish_2019 (7), Tsakalos_2020 (17), WAH_2022_2 (4), WAH_2023_2 (3), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1), Wheeler_2002 (3). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 29 traits from 61 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): fire_killed (2); resprouts (4) [sources: Burrows_2008_2; Burrows_2020; Clarke_2015; Crisp_2003; Pekin_2011; Standish_2019]
post_fire_recruitment (categorical): post_fire_recruitment (1) [sources: Clarke_2015]
fire_time_from_fire_to_flowering (numerical): 23 mo (23-23 mo) [sources: Burrows_2020]

flower morphology

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

fruit morphology

fruit_type (categorical): legume (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_fleshiness (categorical): dry (2) [sources: Sjostrom_2006; Tsakalos_2020]
fruit_dehiscence (categorical): dehiscent (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]

leaf morphology

leaf_margin (categorical): entire (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2020]
leaf_compoundness (categorical): simple (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2020]
leaf_glaucousness (categorical): not_glaucous (2) [sources: Tsakalos_2020]
leaf_hairs_adult_leaves (categorical): glabrous (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2020]
plant_photosynthetic_organ (categorical): cladode (2); leaf (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2020; WAH_2023_2]

life history

photosynthetic_pathway (categorical): c3 (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2020]
plant_growth_form (categorical): shrub (4) [sources: Standish_2019; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022; Wheeler_2002]
life_history (categorical): perennial (8) [sources: Burrows_2008_2; Burrows_2020; Pekin_2011; Standish_2019; Tsakalos_2020; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2023; Wheeler_2002]
woodiness_detailed (categorical): woody (3) [sources: Tsakalos_2020; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
stem_growth_habit (categorical): erect (2) [sources: Tsakalos_2020; WAH_2022_2]
nitrogen_fixing (categorical): nitrogen_fixer (3) [sources: Pekin_2011; Standish_2019; Tsakalos_2020]
root_structure (categorical): arbuscular_mycorrhizal (3) [sources: Pekin_2011; Standish_2019; Tsakalos_2020]
parasitic (categorical): not_parasitic (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2020]
reproductive_maturity (numerical): 1.92 a (1.92-1.92 a) [sources: Burrows_2020]
flowering_time (categorical): nnnnyyyyyynn (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2020]
seedbank_location (categorical): soil_seedbank (3) [sources: Burrows_2008_2; Burrows_2020; Standish_2019]
seed_dormancy_class (categorical): physical_dormancy (1) [sources: Collette_2021]
bud_bank_location (categorical): basal_buds (1); none (1) [sources: Burrows_2008_2; Pekin_2011]

seed morphology

seed_dry_mass (numerical): 0.96 mg (0.96-0.96 mg) [sources: Standish_2019]

whole plant morphology

plant_height (numerical): 0.57 m (0.1-0.8 m) [sources: WAH_2023_2; Wheeler_2002]
plant_physical_defence_structures (categorical): absent (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2020]

Sources

dataset_id	n_traits	n_records	reference
Tsakalos_2020	16	17	J. L. Tsakalos, M. Renton, F. Riviera, E. J. Veneklaas, M. P. Dobrowolski, and L. Mucina. “Trait-based formal definition of plant functional types and functional communities in the multi-species and multi-traits context”. Ecological Complexity 40 (2019), p. 100787. doi: 10.1016/j.ecocom.2019.100787.
Standish_2019	7	7	R. Standish. “Unpublished data: Jarrah forest, Murdoch University”. 2019.
Burrows_2008_2	5	5	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	5	5	N. Burrows. Data from 'Plant Ecological Attributes' theme, NatureMap, DBCA, WA. 2020.
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.
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_2	4	4	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
WAH_2023_2	2	3	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Wheeler_2002	3	3	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.
Clarke_2015	2	2	P. J. Clarke, M. J. Lawes, B. P. Murphy, J. Russell-Smith, C. E. Nano, R. Bradstock, N. J. Enright, J. B. Fontaine, C. R. Gosper, I. Radford, J. J. Midgley, and R. M. Gunton. “A synthesis of postfire recovery traits of woody plants in Australian ecosystems”. Science of The Total Environment 534 (2015), pp. 31-42. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.04.002.
Crisp_2003	2	2	M. D. Crisp and L. G. Cook. “Phylogeny and Evolution of Anomalous Roots in Daviesia (Fabaceae: Mirbelieae)”. International Journal of Plant Sciences 164.4 (2003), pp. 603-612. ISSN: 1537-5315. doi: 10.1086/375318.
Wenk_2022	2	2	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant growth forms dataset”. 2022.
Collette_2021	1	1	J. C. Collette and M. K. J. Ooi. “Distribution of seed dormancy classes across a fire-prone continent: effects of rainfall seasonality and temperature”. Annals of Botany 127.5 (2021), pp. 613-620. doi: 10.1093/aob/mcaa203.
Wenk_2023	1	1	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant life history dataset, University of New South Wales, Sydney”. 2023.