Bedfordia arborescens facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Bedfordia arborescens |
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| Bedfordia arborescens South East Forest National Park, Australia | |
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Senecioneae
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B. arborescens
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| Bedfordia arborescens Hochr.
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The Bedfordia arborescens, also called the blanket leaf, is a type of shrub or small tree. It grows in southeastern Australia. You can find it in cool, wet rainforests, usually in high places.
On the Australian mainland, it grows from the Otway Ranges and Wilsons Promontory in the far southeast. It reaches up to Monga National Park near Braidwood, New South Wales. There is also a small group of these trees on Cape Barren Island in Tasmania. People also call it the blanket bush, flannel leaf, or tree blanketleaf.
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What Does Blanket Leaf Look Like?
The blanket leaf tree usually grows 3 to 6 metres (about 10 to 20 feet) tall. Sometimes, it can reach 12 metres (about 40 feet) high. Its trunk can be up to 45 centimetres (about 18 inches) wide.
Leaves and Branches
It's easy to spot this tree because of its long leaves. The underside of the leaves is white and feels woolly. The tree often has a bent or uneven shape. Its trunk is not straight and can be irregular. The main branches grow close to the ground.
Younger branches are covered in a soft, whitish fuzz. Older branches have brown bark that looks stringy and peels off. The leaves grow in an alternating pattern. They have smooth, wavy edges. The top side is a dull green, and the bottom is white. Each leaf is about 15 to 24 centimetres (6 to 9.5 inches) long and 2 to 4 centimetres (0.8 to 1.6 inches) wide. The main vein on the leaf is sunken on the top but sticks out on the bottom.
Flowers and Fruit
Yellow flowers appear from November to January. They grow in clusters called panicles. These flowers do not have the typical petal-like parts that some flowers have.
The fruit is a ribbed achene. An achene is a small, dry fruit that contains one seed. This fruit is whitish with tiny bristles on top. It is about 8 millimetres (0.3 inches) long and shaped like a cigar. The tree produces fruit from December to January.
Growth Habits
Even though it's not related, a group of blanket leaf trees can remind you of rhododendrons from the Himalayas. This is because they grow in a similar way and have similar leaf shapes. They often grow in the middle layers of the forest, helping to shade the ground below.
After the bushfires in the summer of 2006 in the Howqua Valley, Victoria, Australia, many Bedfordia arborescens trees started growing. They formed a new layer of plants under the taller eucalypt trees in the valleys south of Mount Timbertop.
How Scientists Classify Blanket Leaf
Scientists classify living things into groups. This helps us understand how different species are related. The Bedfordia arborescens was first officially described by a Swiss botanist named Bénédict Hochreutiner. He wrote about it in 1934 in a science journal called Candollea.
He based his description on plants he collected in February 1905. He found these plants in an area called the Black Spur in Victoria.
See also
In Spanish: Hoja manta para niños
