Triplarina bancroftii


Triplarina bancroftii is a species of flowering plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to a restricted area of Queensland. It is a shrub with egg-shaped or elliptic leaves, flowers with five sepals and five relatively small white petals and sixteen to eighteen stamens.

Description

Triplarina bancroftii is a shrub that typically grows to a height of and has a grey, scaly bark. The leaves are elliptical or egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are arranged in leaf axils in pairs or threes on a peduncle long. Each flower is in diameter with bracts about long. The sepal lobes are long and wide with a rounded tip and the petals are white, long and wide. There are sixteen to eighteen stamens on filaments long. Flowering has been recorded in October and November and the fruit is a hemispherical capsule long.

Taxonomy and naming

Triplarina bancroftii was first formally described by Anthony Bean in 1995 and the description was published in the journal Austrobaileya from specimens he collected in Cania Gorge National Park in 1993. The specific epithet honours, the first person to collect this species.

Distribution and habitat

This triplarina is only known from two populations, one in the Cania Gorge National Park and the other south. It grows in sandy soil with species such as Lophostemon confertus and L. suaveolens.

Conservation status

Triplarina bancroftii is classified as of "least concern" under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.