Flickr photo from New Caledonia

Discussion in 'Plants: Identification' started by Michael F, Mar 18, 2013.

  1. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Anyone know what the woody monocot on the right in this Flickr pic is, please? Yaté region, southeast New Caledonia.

    DSCN1140

    And this tree? Yaté region, southeast New Caledonia.

    DSCN1109

    Thanks!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 26, 2016
  2. hortiphoto

    hortiphoto Active Member 10 Years

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    I think the first one is most likely a Freycinetia, probably F. arborea. Don't know about the second one.
     
  3. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Thanks! The genus certainly looks a good match. From the Flickr location, it is remote from human habitation, so likely to be a New Caledonia native species, rather than F. arborea from further northeast. The species list in wikipedia (may be unreliable, of course!) includes 7 species in New Caledonia.
     
  4. hortiphoto

    hortiphoto Active Member 10 Years

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    Actually, on closer examination of those spent flowerheads I'm now more inclined towards Dracophyllum. I don't know which species occur in New Caledonia, but I am familiar with our local Dracophyllum traversii (http://www.plantshots.com/img12485.htm) and it does look more like it.
     
  5. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Thanks again! There's 9 species to chose from in the New Caledonia list, of which Dracophyllum ramosum looks the closest.
     
  6. Tony Rodd

    Tony Rodd Active Member

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  7. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    When I looked through the pics at that NC Flora website, all their D. verticillatum pics (and Scott's too) show unbranched plants, while the D. ramosum pics show (as its species name hints!) branched plants, like the mystery photo. But I'll keep an open mind to other points (I have no personal experience of the genus at all).

    That was already my strong suspicion but I wanted unprompted confirmation from another person, thanks!

    I found the two pics while searching through Flickr for Creative Commons licensed pics to add to Wiki Commons' rather meagre collection of New Caledonian plants, and felt that, while not identified by their photograper and outside my own familiarity, there was a good chance that they would be identifiable by someone. The trick is to search by names of known beauty spots and hope someone has got CC-licensed pics that happen to include interesting plants incidentally. Others I'd already found from New Caledonia include several of Araucaria columnaris (not surprising), a nice Neocallitropsis pic (here, by searching for "Chute de la Madeleine"), and a couple of very poor pics of Araucaria bernieri and Araucaria muelleri.
     

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