A New Plant in our Scrub

A new plant has been found in Franke Scrub.

It is a tiny little mistletoe called Korthalsella japonica forma rubra. You can see why it is known as "zygocactus mistletoe".

This mistletoe grows on a number of different dry rainforest plant species, and in our case it's growing on a Yellow Condoo tree, Pouteria cotinifolia.

Korthalsella species (of which there are probably two on the Downs) are the only known host plants for the Yellow-spotted Jezebel butterfly. We have seen this butterfly in Franke Scrub. You wouldn't imagine that such a small plant could host very many caterpillars, but it must be doing the trick! Our little jezebel population may be a thing of our very own, possibly isolated from any other likely source of host plants, now that clearing has reduced our local evergreen vine thickets to such small remnant pieces.

Our Endangered Ecosystem

The Queensland Environmental Protection Agency has classified our Regional Ecosystem 12.8.21, “low microphyll vine forest and semi-evergreen vine thicket” growing on basalt soil as an endangered ecosystem, making it one of the most threatened ecosystems in south-east Queensland
Their description of the typical vegetation is " Brachychiton rupestris, Flindersia collina, F. australis, Alectryon diversifolius, A. subdentatus, Elattostachys xylocarpa, Erythroxylum sp. (Splityard Creek L.Pedley 5360), Psydrax odorata forma buxifolia, Diospyros geminata,
Pouteria cotinifolia, Croton insularis, Bridelia exaltata and Bursaria incana. Melaleuca bracteata is often present along watercourses." They add that it may or may not contain Araucaria cunninghamii.
The list is interesting, as it describes Franke scrub pretty well, except for B. rupestris (bottle tree) A. cunninghamii (hoop pine) and F. australis (Crows Ash) which all grow nearby.
There are very few protected areas of this ecosystem : (Boat Mountain CP 1, Boat Mountain CP 2, Bunya Mountains NP, Dwyers Scrub CP, Flagstone Creek CP, Main Range NP, Nangur NP, Woroon NP). These remnants require intensive management because of invasion by weeds and fire damage on margins.