Derrick Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 Dischidia litoralis Schltr. (Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter) published in Die Flora der Deutschen Schutzgebiete in der Südsee p359, (1905.) http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/451883#page/357/mode/1up . Reduced to synonymy of D. bengalensis by (Rintz 1980) but see Forster & Liddle, Resurrection of Dischidia littoralis Schltr. (1992.) Yet here, Livschultz 2005 refers herbarium specimens to D. bengalensis. Type. http://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.k000910994 Isotype. http://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.p00218714 Rintz 1980 a better URL. http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/document/565582 Description. It is sometimes a seaside inhabitant (litoralis means of the sea shore.) It occurs on tiny Australian islands, e.g. Dauan Island in Torres Strait, It is also reported from Madang, & Morobe Provinces on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. D. bengalensis is a confirmed myrmecophytic species. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 D. bengalensis is a confirmed myrmecophytic for what raison ? jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrick Posted September 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 D. bengalensis is a confirmed myrmecophytic for what raison ? Confirmed by the extensive field studies of (Kaufmann 2002.) and (Orivel & Leroy 2011.) See my recent book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Pulvirenti Posted January 17, 2016 Report Share Posted January 17, 2016 This is a specimen of Dischidia litoralis from Daun Island in the Torres Strait. Flowering detail for this species. I thought to add photos of this species, as they say "a picture is worth a thousand words" and as good as descriptions are its always good to see what the specimen looks like. This is an excellent species for cultivation, fast growing,easy to propagate and quiet tolerant to fairly low winter minimum temperatures despite its tropical lowland island origin. The specimen above is growing in a 150mm squat pot in a medium to small orchid bark mix ( bark, coco chunks, charcoal and perlite), a large two branched cutting was pegged down along the surface of the mix 12 months ago during the start of our wet season and fed with foliar fertiliser and this is the result. Many thanks to fellow member Rita Kupke who sent me all the cuttings which resulted in 3 hanging pots like the one shown, I have also propagated some for friends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff Posted January 17, 2016 Report Share Posted January 17, 2016 Bonjour ROBERT excellent picture I do not see morphological features that could tell myrmecophytic ? jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurélien Posted January 17, 2016 Report Share Posted January 17, 2016 Hello Robert, Many thanks for this pictures! This is really D. littoralis? I have to ask myself about one plants in Nancy BG that I've myself put into D. cf. oiantha... I'll take a look next week. All the best, Aurélien Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Pulvirenti Posted January 17, 2016 Report Share Posted January 17, 2016 Aurelian Yes this is really D.littoralis. First live material collected on Daun Island in 1989 by Bruce Grey (QRS) on a survey trip sponsored by the Australian Orchid Foundation. The following website will give you a bit more information on this collection. www.jstor.org/stable/41738836 Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurélien Posted January 17, 2016 Report Share Posted January 17, 2016 Wonderfull! So your plant came from this collect? In this case, that's an interesting source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Pulvirenti Posted January 18, 2016 Report Share Posted January 18, 2016 Aurelien I am fairly certain that my plant originated from this or another collection on Daun Island, as live plant material is difficult and expensive to bring into this country and often is does not survive the fumigation treatment through customs. The Torres Strait Islands which includes Daun Is. actually comes under Queensland and are part of Australia, so plant material can normally be exchanged. Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrick Posted January 18, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2016 These are collection records for D. litoralis. http://biocache.ala.org.au/occurrence/search?q=lsid%3Aurn%3Alsid%3Abiodiversity.org.au%3Aapni.taxon%3A285809 Note the spelling has only one T. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrick Posted January 18, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2016 I do not see morphological features that could tell myrmecophytic ? Dischidia bengalensis is myrmecophytic in the sense that it is a regular inhabitant of ant gardens. Thus there is no requirement for any obvious morphological features that show its ant friendly tendencies. They may be expressed in physiological traits such as seed made attractive to ants by having specific pheromones (smells). D. litoralis Schltr. According to Rintz (1980.) http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/document/565582 is merely a synonym of immensely widespread and variable D. bengalensis. Just to complicate matters. Forster & Liddle 1992, Resurrected D, littoralis. Using a different spelling. See Forster & Liddle. Resurrection of Dischidia littoralis Schltr. (1992) I cannot supply a link for this. Yet here the current world Dischidia expert Tatyana Livschultz (2005) refers the following Isotype, repeat Isotype to Dischidia bengalensis. http://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.p00218714 Thus there seems to be some disagreement in the academic world. Nevertheless, as far as I am aware, there are NO ant gardens in Australia or New Guinea, so whatever we wish to call such 'species' from Australasia they are probably not myrmecophytic. Yet having said this, I noted that another Australasian species D.ovata was often found among Myrmecophyte guilds on various Milne Bay Islands. In the attached image D. ovata was growing among Anthorrhiza areolata, A. bracteata, Lecanopteris sinuosa and other epiphytes. Make of this what you wish. PS. The little tuberous plant is a baby Anthorrhiza. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff Posted January 19, 2016 Report Share Posted January 19, 2016 Bonjour ROBERT the flower are yellow or white ? jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Pulvirenti Posted January 19, 2016 Report Share Posted January 19, 2016 Jeff I would describe the flowers as being a pale mustard yellow. Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff Posted January 19, 2016 Report Share Posted January 19, 2016 Bonjour a real myrmecophyte seems to be a plant that provides housing, food or 2 at a time. ant gardens comes close, but can it be said that all living Plant, within them, are myrmecophytes like philodendron - anthurium -phyllocactus for example ? jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrick Posted January 19, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 19, 2016 a real myrmecophyte seems to be a plant that provides housing, food or 2 at a time. ant gardens comes close, but can it be said that all living Plant, within them, are myrmecophytes like philodendron - anthurium -phyllocactus for example ? A myrmecophyte is defined as a plant that lives with a colony of ants, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrmecophyte Providing housing and or food are NOT the only ways that may form mutualistic symbiotic ant and plant associations. True ant garden epiphytes are defined as those integrated into epiphytic carton nests as seed by ants. Certain ant species collect the seed of their mutualistic plant partners and deliberately plant them in their carton nests. This behaviour is induced primarily by ant-manipulative pheromones (scents) emitted by the seed. Surely, a development that is coevolutionary. (Kaufmann 2003 & Orivel & Leroy 2011). Thus such plants are myrmecophytic and because the plants help ant garden nests avoid collapse (read Kaufmann), they are in a collective sense even a little myrmecodomic. Kaufman, Eve. 2002. Southeast Asian ant gardens: diversity, ecology, ecosystematic significance, and evolution of mutualistic ant-epiphyte associations. PhD Thesis. http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/volltexte/2003/273/pdf/KaufmannEva.pdf this is the best link i currently have for the Orivel et Leroy article. http://www.myrmecologicalnews.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=452&layout=default Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrick Posted January 19, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 19, 2016 Hello Robert. I also think that your plant has a high probability of being from the Forster & Liddle collection. The late David Liddle and his wife still has an enormous collection of Hoya & Dischidia in their famous Mareeba Nursery in far North Queensland and I expect he would have dearly wanted specimens of anything new. I see Forster & Liddle spelt it as littoralis but Schlechter in the original description used only one t. Ooops corrected my spelling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Pulvirenti Posted January 20, 2016 Report Share Posted January 20, 2016 Derrick I got this plant from Rita Kupke in Mackay with name and location, next time I speak with her I will see if she can give me any more history about it. Nearly two years ago I got one of each Dischidia species that Iris Liddle had in Mareeba , D.litoralis was not among them, but other really interesting species were, including D.platyphylla, melanesica, imbricata and major all with collection numbers. Once my new shadehouse is finished I will have the time and space to photograph all these species and others and post the pictures and my cultivation methods for each. Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrick Posted January 20, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2016 Thanks Robert. I expect many of us will be looking forward to seeing images of Dischidia species documented by experts such as the Liddles, whom were also well supported by Dr Paul Forster who was well informed regarding these (and other) Malesian species. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff Posted January 20, 2016 Report Share Posted January 20, 2016 Bonjour DERRICK see the definition from WIKIPEDIA Myrmecophyte (mər′mek•ə‚fīt; literally "ant-plant") is a plant that lives in a mutualistic association with a colony of ants. There are over 100 different genera of myrmecophytes.[1]These plants possess structural adaptations that provide ants with food and/or shelter. These specialized structures include domatia, food bodies, and extrafloral nectaries.[1] In exchange for food and shelter, ants aid the myrmecophyte in pollination, seed dispersal, gathering of essential nutrients, and/or defense.[1] Specifically, domatia adapted to ants may be called myrmecodomatia.[2] so we can say that plants with nectaries can extrafloral renter in the true myrmecophyte category as the ant gardens seems to me far, may be a proto myrmecophyly certainly a mutualistic system, in these structure the plants possess no adaptation , it is just an aggregate, plants + carton nest ,plants supporting the nest, like the bee hive, hornet or wasp, now yes, there are myrmecochory with surrounding plants . if D.litoralis = D.bengalensis the leaves form the hair and the lobe corolla in this section jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derrick Posted January 20, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2016 from the Ant Gardens chapter by Bert Holldobler & Edward O. Wilson in their fascinating book "Journey of the ants"."ant gardens, which constitute the most complex and sophisticated of all symbioses between ants and flowering plants."Its a short but highly interesting read. See, http://www.primitivism.com/ant-gardens.htm Link now fixed. To say "in these structure the plants possess no adaptation" is quite wrong. Indeed, such plants have evolved very sophisticated methods of manipulating antsbut as I have already explained, this is not necessarily obvious in gross plant forms. For example how do you expect to see the ant manipulative pheromones that the seeds of dedicated ant garden plants posses. Furthermore, some ant garden plant seed resembles the shape but not the colour (vision is not important to ants) of ant pupae which allied with their pheromones induce the ants to take the seed into their ant carton nests where they may germinate. Furthermore, obligate ant garden plant species may have specific adaptations to their rather specialised habitats but I am not ware of studies that inquire into this particular question.Furthermore. the quote above surely answers the question of whether dedicated ant garden plant species are myrmecophytic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff Posted January 21, 2016 Report Share Posted January 21, 2016 Bonjour the link is broken for you myrmecochory = myrmecophyly for me no , but it is just my opinion jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Pulvirenti Posted January 22, 2016 Report Share Posted January 22, 2016 I was speaking with Rita Kupke in Mackay this morning and asked her about this Dischidia litoralis-Duan Island. She informed my that she was given the initial piece by Dr.Ashley Field from the Cairns University, so I would conclude that all information concerning this plant to be fairly accurate. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff Posted January 22, 2016 Report Share Posted January 22, 2016 Bonjour no possibility to see a flower section or to say us the corolla lobe form and the corolla hairs place to strengthen the opinion of this teacher, who must indeed be eminent . I have 2 flower from D.litoralis and D.bengalensis the first seem to me close to the ROBERT specimen's D.litoralis jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Pulvirenti Posted February 6, 2016 Report Share Posted February 6, 2016 Australian Herbariums have have 8 samples of D.litoralis in their collections, 3 from Australia and 5 from New Guinea. From Australia 2 collections were made from Dauan Island,Mt.Cornwallis at 200masl. and one from Moa Island, Banks Peak at 400masl. From New Guinea 3 collections were made from the area around Lae, one from the Sepik District and one from around Medang. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff Posted February 6, 2016 Report Share Posted February 6, 2016 Bonjour ROBERT these plants have the same flower ? for the determination , the leaves are important but the flower so much jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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