Nuytsia floribunda is a hemiparasitic tree found in Western Australia. The species is known locally as moodjar and, more recently, the Christmas tree or Western Australian Christmas tree. The display of intensely bright flowers during the austral summer coincides with the Christmas season.
Description
The habit of the species may be a tree up to high, or as a lower-growing shrub. The rough bark is grey-brown. Flowers are a vivid, yellow-orange, appearing sometime between October and January. In natural settings, however, Nuytsia withdraw relatively little from each individual host, but are attached to so many other plants that the benefits for the hemiparasite are likely to be considerable.
Roots and rhizomes extend out, and may sucker, to form new branches and give the appearance of a grove of trees. A network of fine, fragile roots arises from these larger underground parts, forming haustoria where they meet the roots of other species.
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The width is up to 1.2 metres in diameter, composed of multiple layers of wood and bark that allow the tree to withstand fire. An unusual characteristic of the seedlings is the four to six cotyledons rather than two.<!-- Beard -->
Taxonomy
Recognised in its earliest descriptions as a species of the Loranthaceae, a family almost entirely represented by epiphytes (mistletoes) allied in the Santalales order. The current treatment of Nuytsia floribunda is as a monotypic genus, Nuytsia. This species was seen as a sister taxon to Atkinsonia ligustrina (Loranthaceae) in its description as Nuytsia ligustrina by Allan Cunningham in 1817. the specific epithet describing the profuse flowers he had observed at Esperance. The botanist Robert Brown published a remark on the species in 1831, giving a new genus name without a formal description. A description was published by George Don using Brown's name Nuytsia, For thousands of years, the tree's striking yellow and orange flowers have been a warning sign for Minang Noongar people that fire and flames are coming. It flowers during the Noongar season of birak. The regional name of "Christmas tree" has been applied since the nineteenth century. James Drummond noted in 1843 that the colonists at the Swan River referred to this species as the "fire-tree", given for the resemblance of the inflorescence to a fire in its habitat. William Milligan reported that the first colonists used the term "cabbage tree", a reference to its fragile, white and spongy branches that can be snapped off as easily as the stalks of the European vegetable, cabbage.
The species was once common across the Swan Coastal Plain, now mostly cleared around Perth with changes in land use since colonisation. Flowers from the tree are traditionally used to make a sweet, mead-like beverage during birak. Nuytsia is regarded as a sacred and protected tree by the Noongar; the species is noted for being incorporated into rituals and having a conservation status that forbids its destruction. The plant is venerated by some, who maintain that it should not be sat beneath, nor should its flowers, leaves or branches be touched or removed. The sugary gum is consumed in modest quantities, and children are warned of overindulgence with the story of a monstrous, invulnerable and inescapable nocturnal being, whose cry of "Nhervalong" can be heard as it collects the gum on which it subsists. Seasonal use by other groups of the roots is also known; Ethel Hassell, at Jerramungup, was invited to taste some being harvested by a group of women, reporting the flavour of the flesh beneath the easily-removed skin to be sweet, with a brittle and somewhat watery texture.
References
- Association of Societies for Growing Australian Plants (ASGAP) Nuytsia floribunda
- Thomas Göbel: Heilpflanzen gegen Krebs und Psychose, Nuytsia Floribunda und Viscum Album, Betrachtung und Beurteilung zweier polarer Pflanzencharaktere und ihre Anwendungsmöglichkeiten. Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart/Germany 2004, (German language)