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Idiospermum australiense
Also called Ribbonwood, Idiotfruit
Idiospermum australiense is a single-species tree (the only member of its genus) in the Calycanth family, found only in tropical rainforest in northeastern Queensland, Australia. It is a broadleaf evergreen tree that grows to about 25 m and is mainly of interest to botanists rather than gardeners, so growing it needs wet tropical conditions.
Idiospermum is a monotypic genus (that is, a genus that contains only one species) in the family Calycanthaceae. The sole included species is Idiospermum australiense − commonly known as ribbonwood, dinosaur tree, or the misnomer idiotfruit − which is found only in two small areas of the tropical rainforests of northeastern Queensland, Australia. It has the largest seed embryo of any flowering plant, and is the only flowering plant with more than two cotyledons. It is a relic of the ancient forests of Gondwana, surviving in very localised refugia for 120 million years, and displaying features (of the flowers in particular) that are almost identical to fossil records from that time. As such it provides an important insight into the very early evolution of flowering plants.
The area occupied by the populations of Idiospermum australiense is a total of just 22.5 km2 (8.7 sq mi) There are two main populations, the first (where Diels collected his samples), is approximately 50 km (31 mi) south of Cairns, in the vicinity of the Russell River and its tributaries. The other is approximately 120 km (75 mi) north of Cairns and around 10 km (6.2 mi) south of Cape Tribulation, in the areas of Cooper and Noah Creeks. Both areas are rainforested lowlands at the foot of high, rain-attracting mountains, with annual rainfalls of more than 3,000 mm (120 in), and alluvial soils. As the seeds of ribbonwood are only dispersed by gravity, the distribution of the species can only expand seawards.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Idiospermum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
