Benstonea monticola
Benstonea monticola, commonly known as scrub breadfruit or urchin-fruited pandan, is a plant in the family Pandanaceae which is endemic to rainforested parts of north east Queensland, Australia.
Description
The scrub breadfruit is an evergreen shrub or small tree usually growing to between high, and rarely to. It produces multiple stems which are weak and become decumbent with age, i.e. they lean to one side and eventually lie on the ground with just the growing tip erect. The stems measure around in diameter, and prop roots are absent.The leaves are tightly clustered on the growing tip of the stem and are arranged spirally. They are very long and narrow, measuring up to long by wide, and are ascendant to arching. They are dark green above and a lighter green below, and are pleated such that they have an M-shaped cross-section. Small spines are present on the leaf margins and the underside of the midrib.
This species is dioecious, meaning that functionally female and functionally male flowers are borne on separate plants. The inflorescence is a terminal spike, enclosed by large creamy-white bracts.
The fruit is a multiple fruit, in other words it is a single body consisting of the merged maturing ovaries of a cluster of flowers. It is orange-red to bright red, roughly spherical to slightly egg-shaped, and measures up to Each fruit contains over 300 segments around long by wide, each tipped by a persistent style.
Taxonomy
Benstonea monticola was first described as Pandanus monticola by the German-born botanist Ferdinand von Mueller, and published three times in his massive work Fragmenta phytographiæ Australiæ. In 2012 the new genus Benstonia was erected by Martin Callmander and Sven Buerki and 50 species were transferred to it from Pandanus.Etymology
The species epithet monticola is derived from the Latin words mons and -cola, meaning "mountain dweller".The common name "scrub breadfruit" is a reference to the superficial similarity of the fruit to the more well-known breadfruit.