Citrus gracilis 2019 .... at Daly River Road, NT, Australia
DNA D0200395 is a Citrus gracilis occurrence record in the NT Herbarium dating from December 2010. It says nothing about the tree or trees, but does give a location along the Daly River Road which seemed easily accessible.
I entered the co-ordinates into GoogleMaps and set off from Darwin. A couple of hours driving later I stopped on the roadside when the satnav reported 'you have reached your destination'. To my astonishment I found the Citrus gracilis no more than 20 metres away on the North side of the road.
This was a patch of small trees up to about 3m tall, with many small burnt 'stubs' with new growth starting, and loads of spikey tufts of suckers at ground level. The whole area where the plants could be seen was around 40m by 20 m, and had clearly suffered fire in the past year or so.
I entered the co-ordinates into GoogleMaps and set off from Darwin. A couple of hours driving later I stopped on the roadside when the satnav reported 'you have reached your destination'. To my astonishment I found the Citrus gracilis no more than 20 metres away on the North side of the road.
This was a patch of small trees up to about 3m tall, with many small burnt 'stubs' with new growth starting, and loads of spikey tufts of suckers at ground level. The whole area where the plants could be seen was around 40m by 20 m, and had clearly suffered fire in the past year or so.
You can see how the bark on these trees has cracked into irregular squares and rectangles. This is one of the features mentioned in Mabberley's original botanical description of the species. However, I believe this is probably a response to fire on the thick corky bark. Trees at The Pines had a much smoother bark. Either they are a variant species, or unburnt trees do not have this cracked bark.
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C. gracilis 2019 information:
C. gracilis 2019 information:
page created 21st September 2019