« April 2008 | Main | July 2008 »
Why is it endangered? L. tasmanica is endangered because it only occurs naturally in one small area in the world. The total wild plant population is around 500 individuals all restricted to one disease and fire prone area. Kings lomatia (Lomatia tasmanica) occurs as a single population in Tasmania's remote southwest within the Wilderness World Heritage Area.
It is a Tasmanian endemic, first recorded by miner and naturalist, Deny King in 1937 at New Harbour but this population seems to have since disappeared. During the 1960's Deny sent specimens of the plant to the Tasmanian Herbarium to be identified and so it became known to science. Its common name "Kings lomatia" is in honour of the man who discovered it.
Why are these plants unable to sexually reproduce? Although this plant does produce flowers it has never produced fruit or seed. The reason for this is that the plant is a triploid. This means it has three sets of chromosomes instead of the normal two. This renders the plant sterile. Other Tasmanian species, L. tinctoria and L. polymorpha are diploid (two sets of chromosomes), as are other species of the genus and the subfamily to which it belongs.
The only way it can reproduce itself is by vegetative means. It simply clones itself. When it gets old and falls down, it puts out new suckers and grows up again. It is still theoretically the same plant.
In fact latest research has shown that Kings lomatia is all one single clone. There is no genetic diversity within the population. This means that all the individual Kings lomatia plants are genetically identical.
The oldest plant clone in the world! Amazingly, this plant clone has been around for at least 43,600 years. At Melaleuca Inlet some Pleistocene fossils of Lomatia leaves were found that appear to be L. tasmanica. Radio-carbon dating gave a minimum age of 43,600 years for the layer in which the leaf fossil was found.