Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia

Grey Grass-tree at Burrinjuck, NSW

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Identification history

Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia	27 Jan 2025	Tapirlord
Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia	25 Jan 2025	marcycad
Xanthorrhoea australis	21 Nov 2019	BettyDonWood
Xanthorrhoea (genus)	28 Sep 2019	BettyDonWood
Xanthorrhoea (genus)	27 Sep 2019	MatthewFrawley

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User's notes

Not sure if I have enough detail to identify the species, or if the location is enough? Any tips on what I should be looking for or photographing with these plants would be appreciated.

3 comments

BettyDonWood wrote:

28 Sep 2019

There are only two possibilities - Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia and Xanthorrhoea australis (unlikely) presuming this is a tree type Xanthorrhoea. The easiest seen difference between these two species is the length of the flower stalk below the flower spike - up to 0.5 m long in australis, and 0.5-1.4 m long in glauca subsp. angustifolia. Glauca subsp. angustifolia leaves are always glaucous (bluey green with a whitish bloom) while those of australis are usually green, occasionally glaucous.

BettyDonWood wrote:

21 Nov 2019

I have now looked at ALA and NSW Bionet Atlas. Both say that Xanthorrhoea australis is the common species at Burrinjuck. There are only a few records of glauca, dating from the 1950s.

marcycad wrote:

25 Jan 2025

There is only one species to occur at this latitude and this far inland, this being X. glauca angustifolia.
X. australis has been widely used as a name for populations of grass-trees throughout eastern Australia, updated information has now defined that there is a geographical separation between X. glauca and X. australis, whereby X. australis typically occurs along the milder coastal regions of Tas, Vic, SA and NSW and X. glauca angustifolia is found on the colder (in winter) inland slopes and tablelands west of the Dividing Range in south-eastern Qld, NSW and central and northern Vic. (Bellette, M.P. (2014) Studies of the Distribution and Taxonomy of Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia (Xanthorrhoeaceæ) in Victoria. Muelleria Vol. 32. pp: 8–15.)

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Location information

Places Burrinjuck, NSW

Sighting information

4 - 15 Abundance
MatthewFrawley Recorded by
Collections
MatthewFrawley NatureMapr Canberra & Southern Tablelands Grass-trees Palms and tree-like monocots Plants

Additional information

True In flower
1 metre to 5 metres Plant height

Species information

Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia Scientific name
Grey Grass-tree Common name
Sensitive
Rare or uncommon native
Non-invasive or negligible
Machine learning
External link More information

Record quality

Images or audio
More than one media file
Verified by an expert moderator
Nearby sighting(s) of same species
GPS evidence of location
Description
Additional attributes

Australian Capital Territory

New South Wales

Queensland

Northern Territory

Western Australia

South Australia

Victoria

Tasmania