Jedda is a monotypic plant genus in the Thymelaeaceae

Thymelaeaceae

Thymelaeaceae is a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants composed of 50 genera and 898 species. It was established in 1789 by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu.Thymelaeaceae is in the order Malvales...

 family, its only species being J. multicaulis. The species is an upright, evergreen bush indigenous

Indigenous (ecology)

In biogeography, a species is defined as native to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention. Every natural organism has its own natural range of distribution in which it is regarded as native...

 to tropical Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, discovered in the early 1980s on the Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...

 in northern Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

, in an area of grassy forest land. The full extent of its distribution is unknown. The name Jedda is a toponym

Toponymy

Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...

 from Jedda Creek, which is close to where the type specimen was collected from.

Description

Jedda multicaulis is a multi-stemmed, upright, evergreen bush (1.5–2.5m tall). Stem

Plant stem

A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant. The stem is normally divided into nodes and internodes, the nodes hold buds which grow into one or more leaves, inflorescence , conifer cones, roots, other stems etc. The internodes distance one node from another...

s, which are smooth, reddish-brown, and cylindrical when young, and woody as they age, arise from a central corm

Corm

A corm is a short, vertical, swollen underground plant stem that serves as a storage organ used by some plants to survive winter or other adverse conditions such as summer drought and heat ....

. Glabrous, coriaceous, point-tipped, oval-shaped leaves (2.5–7mm long × 8–25mm wide), are arranged oppositely, or nearly oppositely, along the stems. Inflorescence

Inflorescence

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

s (2–4mm long) are clusters of usually three, occasionally up to 5 flowers, set in bract

Bract

In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis, or cone scale. Bracts are often different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of a different color, shape, or texture...

s. Flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

 base is tubular (7–9mm long), extending into sepal

Sepal

A sepal is a part of the flower of angiosperms . Collectively the sepals form the calyx, which is the outermost whorl of parts that form a flower. Usually green, sepals have the typical function of protecting the petals when the flower is in bud...

s and white corolla lobes (3.8–5mm long). Flowers come out in October. Fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

s (6–8cm long × 4–6cm wide) which are sometimes viviparous and exhibit cryptogeal (i.e. plant burrows under the soil) germination

Germination

Germination is the process in which a plant or fungus emerges from a seed or spore, respectively, and begins growth. The most common example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm. However the growth of a sporeling from a spore, for example the...

, are green leathery berries

Berry

The botanical definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary. Grapes are an example. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. They may have one or more carpels with a thin covering and fleshy interiors....

 or achene

Achene

An achene is a type of simple dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. Achenes are monocarpellate and indehiscent...

s.

External links

• Type specimen photo from the Missouri Botanic Garden
• Fruit photo from the Australian National Botanic Gardens
• Distributional map from Australian National Botanic Gardens