Buckinghamia

Life-forms

Classification System: APG IV

Superregnum: Eukaryota
Regnum: Plantae
Cladus: Angiosperms
Cladus: Eudicots
Ordo: Proteales

Familia: Proteaceae
Subfamilia: Grevilleoideae
Tribus: Embothrieae
Subtribus: Hakeinae
Genus: Buckinghamia
Species: B. celsissima – B. ferruginiflora
Name

Buckinghamia F.Muell. (1868)
References

Foreman, D.B & Hyland, B.P.M. 1988. New species of Buckinghamia F.Muell. and Stenocarpus R.Br. (Proteaceae) from northern Queensland. Muelleria, 6(6): 417–424. BHL. PDF. Reference page.
Myeller, F.J.H. von 1868. Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae 6: 248.
USDA, ARS, Germplasm Resources Information Network. Buckinghamia in the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN), U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service. Accessed: 08-Apr-12.

Buckinghamia is a genus of only two known species of trees, belonging to the plant family Proteaceae.[1][2][3][4] They are endemic to the rainforests of the wet tropics region of north eastern Queensland, Australia.[4][5][6] The ivory curl flower, B. celsissima, is the well known, popular and widely cultivated species in gardens and parks, in eastern and southern mainland Australia, and additionally as street trees north from about Brisbane.[7][8] The second species, B. ferruginiflora, was only recently described in 1988.

History, classification and evolution

The genus was named in 1868 by Ferdinand von Mueller in honour of Richard Grenville, the Duke of Buckingham,[1] who was Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1866 to 1868.[7] It was initially placed in a tribe Grevilleae, but the feature of having four ovules per carpel led C. Venkata Rao to classify it in the tribe Telopeae, and within this a new subtribe Hollandaeae based on the antero-posterior orientation of the perianth, with the genera Hollandaea, Cardwellia, Knightia, Opisthiolepis and Stenocarpus.[9]

Lawrie Johnson and Barbara G. Briggs recognised the affinities of this genus with the rainforest taxon Opisthiolepis and classified the two in the subtribe Buckinghamiinae within the tribe Embothrieae in the subfamily Grevilleoideae in their 1975 monograph "On the Proteaceae: the evolution and classification of a southern family", and thus related to Lomatia, Stenocarpus and the Embothriinae.[10] However, analysis of chloroplast sequences revealed a much closer relationship of Buckinghamia and Opisthiolepis with Grevillea instead. Both genera have eleven pairs of chromosomes, which is reduced further in Grevillea.[11] More recent evolutionary botanical science confirms that they correlate closest with the genera Opisthiolepis, Finschia, Grevillea and Hakea in the subtribe Hakeinae, with Buckinghamia and Opisthiolepis as two early offshoots from the ancestors of the other three genera.[12][13][14]
Species and summary descriptions

Buckinghamia celsissima F.Muell., ivory curl, ivory curl flower, spotted silky oak, buckinghamia silky oak[1][5]
Buckinghamia ferruginiflora Foreman & B.Hyland[3][6]

Buckinghamia celsissima (ivory curl flower) trees grow up to about 10 m (35 ft) tall in Australian gardens, parks and botanic gardens and much taller naturally to about 30 m (100 ft).[8] The leaves are glossy dark green, and either lobed or entire, with new growth flushed pink. Spectacular in flower, they bear long showy sprays of sweetly fragrant, creamy-white flowers in summer. In a garden they can grow in full sun or part shade, and will attract birds and bees. Hardy and spectacular trees, they make ideal screens or windbreaks in a garden.[7][8]

B. celsissima (ivory curl flower) trees in the botanic gardens in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have been in cultivation for over a hundred years. They grow outdoors successfully in places as temperate as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. Its notable landscape designer and director William Guilfoyle already had them growing there over one hundred years ago,[15] resulting today in beautifully flowering, slow growing, established small trees.[16] In the same late 1800s period the Adelaide Botanic Gardens already had them in cultivation also.[17] They are popular and widely cultivated in many parks and gardens in coastal regions of eastern and southern mainland Australia, notably also their long history of planting in Brisbane as street trees.[7][8]

B. celsissima rainforest trees grow naturally up to about 30 m (100 ft) tall in tropical rainforests of north eastern Queensland from about 200 to 1,000 m (700 to 3,300 ft) altitude.[5]

Buckinghamia ferruginiflora (Noah's Oak, Spotted Oak) is a species of rainforest trees growing naturally up to about 30 m (100 ft) tall.

Botanists scientifically recognised these trees’ differences only from about the early 1970s.[3] They have only found them growing naturally in a restricted area of the Daintree region. They grow in luxuriant tropical rainforests from sea level through an area of lowlands up to lower uplands at an altitude of about 350 m (1,150 ft).[3][6]

Buckinghamia ferruginiflora was formally scientifically described in 1988 by Don Foreman and Bernie Hyland.[3][6][7] They have: branchlets often hairy; leaves 9–20 cm (4–8 in) long, 2–6 cm (1–2 in) wide; buds, shoots and flower structures with dense ferruginous (rusty coloured) hairs; flower structures of compound inflorescences 8–20 cm (3–8 in) long; individual flowers creamy brown, with the dense rusty hairs on the tepals’ outer surfaces; styles shorter (7–8 mm (0.28–0.31 in)) than B. celsissima (15–20 mm (0.6–0.8 in)); fruits follicles 2–2.5 cm (0.8–1.0 in) long; seeds flat with a small wing.[4][6]

B. ferruginiflora’s, restricted, endemic, distribution has obtained the conservation status of "near threatened" currently officially listed by the Queensland government legislation, the Nature Conservation Act 1992.[18]
References

Mueller, Ferdinand von (Dec 1868). "Buckinghamia". XLIX (Digitised archive copy, online, through biodiversitylibrary.org). Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae. 6. Auctoritate Gubern. Coloniæ Victoriæ, Ex Officina Joannis Ferres. pp. 247–248. Retrieved 9 Apr 2013.
"Buckinghamia%". Australian Plant Name Index (APNI), Integrated Botanical Information System (IBIS) database (listing by % wildcard matching of all taxa relevant to Australia). Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research, Australian Government. Retrieved 26 Apr 2013.
Foreman, Don B.; Hyland, Bernie P. M. (1988). "New species of Buckinghamia F.Muell. and Stenocarpus R.Br. (Proteaceae) from northern Queensland". Muelleria. 6 (6). p. 417, Fig. 1.
Foreman, Don B.; Hyland, Bernie P. M. (1995). "Buckinghamia". In McCarthy, Patrick (ed.). Flora of Australia: Volume 16: Eleagnaceae, Proteaceae 1. Flora of Australia series. CSIRO Publishing / Australian Biological Resources Study. pp. 499, 391–3, Fig's 139 172, Maps 441 442. ISBN 978-0-643-05692-3. Retrieved 9 Apr 2013.
F.A. Zich; B.P.M Hyland; T. Whiffen; R.A. Kerrigan (2020). "Buckinghamia celsissima". Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants, Edition 8. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Retrieved 2 March 2021.
"Buckinghamia ferruginiflora". Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants, Edition 8. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Retrieved 1 March 2021.
Wrigley, John; Fagg, Murray (1991). Banksias, Waratahs and Grevilleas. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. pp. 124–26. ISBN 0-207-17277-3.
Elliot, W. Roger; Jones, David L. (1983). "Buckinghamia celsissima F. Muell.". Encyclopaedia of Australian Plants Suitable for Cultivation. 2. Sydney: Lothian Publ. Co. pp. 385–386. ISBN 9780850911480.
Rao, C. Venkata (28 Aug 1957). "Cytotaxonomy of the Proteaceae". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. Digitised archive copy, online, through biodiversitylibrary.org (published 6 Nov 1957). 82 (2): 257–71. Retrieved 16 Apr 2013.
Johnson, Lawrie A. S.; Briggs, Barbara G. (6 Dec 1973). "On the Proteaceae—the evolution and classification of a southern family". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society (published Feb 1975). 70 (2): 83–182. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.1975.tb01644.x.
Hoot, Sara B.; Douglas, Andrew W. (1998). "Phylogeny of the Proteaceae based on atpB and atpB-rbcL intergenic spacer region sequences". Australian Systematic Botany. 11 (4): 301–20. doi:10.1071/SB98027.
Weston, Peter H.; Barker, Nigel P. (2006). "A new suprageneric classification of the Proteaceae, with an annotated checklist of genera". Telopea. 11 (3): 314–344. doi:10.7751/telopea20065733.
Sauquet, Hervé; Weston, Peter H.; et al. (6 Jan 2009). "Contrasted patterns of hyperdiversification in Mediterranean hotspots". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (1): 221–225. Bibcode:2009PNAS..106..221S. doi:10.1073/pnas.0805607106. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 2629191. PMID 19116275.
Mast, Austin R.; Milton, Ethan F.; et al. (1 Mar 2012). "Time-calibrated phylogeny of the woody Australian genus Hakea (Proteaceae) supports multiple origins of insect-pollination among bird-pollinated ancestors". American Journal of Botany. 99 (3): 472–487. doi:10.3732/ajb.1100420. PMID 22378833.
Barnard, Francis G. A., ed. (Nov 1907). "Exhibition of wild flowers: Flowers of the following Australian plants then in bloom in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens were exhibited by Mr. F. Pitcher, on behalf of the Director, Mr. W. R. Guilfoyle, F.L.S." Victorian Naturalist. Digitised archive copy, online, through biodiversitylibrary.org. 24 (7): (108–)109. Retrieved 14 Apr 2013.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne (12 Apr 2013). "Plant Census: Buckinghamia celsissima at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne". Melbourne: Royal Botanic Gardens. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 14 Apr 2013.
Adelaide Botanic Gardens; Schomburgk, Richard (1878). Catalogue of the plants under cultivation in the Government Botanic Garden, Adelaide, South Australia. Digitised archive copy, online, through biodiversitylibrary.org. Adelaide: W.C. Cox, government printer. p. 149.
Queensland Government (27 Sep 2013). "Nature Conservation (Wildlife) Regulation 2006" (PDF). Nature Conservation Act 1992. Online, accessed from www.legislation.qld.gov.au. Australia. p. 65. Retrieved 1 Dec 2013.