Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia

Grey Grass-tree at Burrinjuck, NSW

Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia at Burrinjuck, NSW - suppressed
Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia at Burrinjuck, NSW - suppressed
Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia at Burrinjuck, NSW - suppressed
Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia at Burrinjuck, NSW - suppressed
Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. angustifolia at Burrinjuck, NSW - suppressed
Request use of media

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 sp. 28 Sep 2019 BettyDonWood
Xanthorrhoea sp. 27 Sep 2019 MatthewFrawley

Identify this sighting


Please Login or Register to identify this sighting.

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.)

Please Login or Register to comment.

Location information

Sighting information

Additional information

  • True In flower
  • 1 metre to 5 metres Plant height

Species 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
1,910,233 sightings of 21,475 species from 13,297 contributors
CCA 3.0 | privacy
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of this land and acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present.