Eidothea facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Eidothea |
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| Eidothea hardeniana | |
Scientific classification  |
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| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Order: | Proteales |
| Family: | Proteaceae |
| Subfamily: | Proteoideae |
| Genus: | Eidothea A.W.Douglas & B.Hyland |
| Type species | |
| Eidothea zoexylocarya A.W.Douglas & B.Hyland
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| Species | |
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See text |
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Eidothea is a special group, or genus, of two kinds of rainforest trees found in eastern Australia. You can find them in parts of New South Wales and Queensland. These trees belong to a plant family called Proteaceae. This family got its name from Proteus, a god from ancient Greek stories who could change his shape. The name Eidothea itself comes from one of Proteus's three daughters.
These trees are like living fossils! In 1883, a botanist named Ferdinand von Mueller found old fossil seeds in Victoria. These seeds were from a time called the Miocene epoch, millions of years ago. They looked exactly like the seeds of today's Eidothea trees.
Eidothea trees are found in places that are very far apart, more than 1,000 km (620 mi)! You can see them in the mountains of the Wet Tropics in north-eastern Queensland and in the Nightcap Range area of north-eastern New South Wales. The old fossils were found even further south in Victoria. This shows us that Australia's rainforests today are just tiny pieces of much bigger, ancient rainforests that once covered huge parts of the country millions of years ago. This makes these trees a truly special part of Australia's natural history.
Discovering Eidothea's Family
The Proteaceae family, which Eidothea belongs to, includes many other well-known plants. You might have heard of waratahs, grevilleas, banksias, and even the macadamia trees that give us yummy nuts! This plant family is very, very old. Scientists believe it first appeared when the supercontinent Gondwana was still one giant landmass.
What Was Gondwana?
Imagine a time over 120 million years ago when the Earth looked very different. There was a huge continent called Gondwana. It was made up of land that we now know as Australia, Africa, South America, and Antarctica. Smaller pieces like New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Madagascar were also part of it. As Gondwana slowly broke apart, its pieces carried different kinds of plants and animals with them. This included many types of Proteaceae plants.
Eidothea is a rare survivor from one of the very first groups of these ancient plants. It has barely managed to live on in the rainforests of eastern Australia. Other groups of Proteaceae plants went on to grow and change a lot, leading to hundreds of different kinds of species we see today.
Eidothea is part of a smaller group within the Proteaceae family called Proteoideae. This group also includes plants like Protea from South Africa, and Australian plants such as Isopogon (often called ‘drumsticks’), Adenanthos (known as jugflowers), Petrophile (or ‘conesticks’), and Conospermum (smoke-bushes).
Types of Eidothea Trees
Today, we know of two living species of Eidothea:
- Eidothea hardeniana: This tree is quite rare! It's only found naturally in the Nightcap National Park and a nearby area called Whian Whian State Forest. Because it's so rare, it's listed as an endangered species in New South Wales.
- Eidothea zoexylocarya: You can find this species on the slopes of Mount Bartle Frere and other mountains close by, in the area around Cairns in north-eastern Queensland.
