Melaleuca parvistaminea

Interesting, these plants at Majura, the fairly well-established groves on Mt Mugga, and at the Curtin horse paddocks, and the 4-5 shrubs myself and Ned Johnston found near the black mountain at dryandra St are painting a very widespread picture for this shrub. I wonder if this may actually be a local native, or if it is just the latest edition to the long list of widespread shrubby weeds...........

No Idea ? The Federal Highway location is "suspicious " though, as all sorts of things have been planted in this vicinity. These 2-3 particular shrubs seem to have a random location, not a "planted" look... ?

Hello,
the ACT Census lists this species as follows:
Melaleuca parvistaminea MYRTACEAE Exotic [Aust] 2010 B.J.Lepschi 3916 et al. Rough Paperbark
I think we should not automatically assume a species to be local because it is widespread. You wouldn't consider for instance Acacia boormanii and Hakea salicifolia local because they are widespread; for instance I removed A boormanii from the west slopes of Mts Ainslie Majura up to the summit of Mt Majura. The reason for those highly invasive exotic Australian species being widespread is they are widely used in landscaping and cultivated in gardens and still sold at native plant sales and nurseries.
As Max pointed out, there are a number of Australian species planted along Fed highway which are not local, some of which I haven't seen in the adjacent nature reserve such as bottlebrushes - perhaps because of a (s)low invasive potential - others are aggressive invaders of the grassy woodlands such as Snowy River Wattle, Knife-leaved wattle and the Sand Grevillea (G. arenaria subsp. arenaria) which the Census lists as Exotic for ACT.

Hey Waltraud, just want to stress that nobody is assuming anything. Obviously you are correct in saying that distribution does not equate to a species being native, but I do think it is something to consider. These comments are several years old and having had the benefit of a few additional years of expierence I'm now pretty confident in my position that this species has been introduced to the ACT. If you were to look at the distribution you would see that occurs nearly exclusively around the city and often around disturbed or anthropogenic water features. It does seem to be increasing it's presence in the ACT so perhaps it is time to think about removing some.

I must admit I have always been a little intrigued about M. parvistaminea being non-local. I've just done a bit more research and it doesn't really appear to be very clear-cut. ALA says the species is native from the Shoalhaven district to Victoria, and the ANPS says the species "natural range is south from around Taralga, Tallong and Nowra in NSW, extending through the southern tablelands...". There appear to be a number of records even on CNM and elsewhere from some of the inland ranges such as around Boro, Braidwood and Tallaganda... I can't imagine these to not be native populations. Realistically the ACT is not much further inland. Furthermore to Ciaran's comments some of the spots where the species is found in the ACT are a bit odd for introduced origins, including my own sighting from our place at Wamboin: Melaleuca parvistaminea (Small-flowered Honey-myrtle) . I've always been skeptical about my record being non-local as I've found no evidence of planting by anyone nearby and there is a fairly well established stand with plants of lots of different stages of maturity, in a damp creekline habitat (typical for the species, it also doesn't appear to be spreading or showing signs of invasive potential). ANPS also states this particular species is not common in cultivation which is interesting to note. Overall I think this highlights that some of the origins of (non-local) native plants isn't really all that clear cut as we think it might be. It's definitely not out of the possible realms that M. parvistaminea may have scattered local populations in the ACT. Obviously whilst it is also important to address non-local natives as threats in many instances, it is also important to perhaps consider some others like this one with a little more caution, as nowadays with so many species spreading to new areas, its sometimes hard to know for sure.

Most ALA records more than 20 years old are 'Cultivated' with one or two 'naturalised' or 'adventive'. Others up to about 2012 are in reserves such as Casuarina Sands, Kambah, etc which are also likely planted. Taking a wild guess, the plants on Mt Mugga could have been planted near Sheedy's Hut many years ago. Possibly, the natural population is nearer Braidwood.

Nice to have your view here Luke, you've definitely raised a few points I hadn't considered! This is certainly this is a good conversation to be having and particuarly if we intend to begin controlling this species in the near future.

Whilst I agree that having a local population isn't outside the realm of possibility, I still stand by my position. Obviously it does occur naturally in the Boro and Braidwood areas, but this country is closer to the coast and to that effect it is amazing what a couple of mountain ranges can achieve in terms of climate. For instance, both Banksia spinulosa and Lomatia ilicifolia occur quite happily dry forest communities around the Boro/Braidwood area, but neither occur naturally in the ACT even where similar communities persist (At least in terms of dominant tree species).

I also don't necessarily agree with the point you make about all local populations orginating from plantings. We know that this species does seed successfully locally, we have found seedlings to that effect, so I wouldn't be surprised if this species was planted only occasionally and most local records represent this species spreading. I'd suggest this as an alternative explantion for the plants recorded from your place. Again, this species does show a strong preference for disturbed areas (this has been true in every instance where I have found it), which i do think is important to be aware of. Obviously there are plenty of local species which exhibit this (Cassinias for instance), but in most cases you are able to find these species in habitat which has experienced relatively little anthropogenic disturbance (e.g. Namadgi). This is not true of Melaleuca parvistaminea, or at least it hasn't proven to be so far.

Just so everybody is completely clear, regardless of whether or not we believe this species to be endemic I am against the removal of plants without due consideration. This species currently occurs in many areas which have experienced considerable ecological upheaval in recent years and as such we really don't know what those ecosystems "should" look like. Creeklines often support dense shrubby species (Bursaria for instance), which historically was often removed by grazers and hence is lacking in some of our urban reserves. Perhaps this species is fullfilling that niche and providing important functions like bank stability and food and habitat for native birds. I do agree with Luke that this species hasn't really exhibted any invasive tendencies as of yet.

I do have more to say here, but i'll leave things there for now.

Commentary is more than welcome (I have been very wrong about this sort of thing before lol).

Thanks for your comments too, great to have this in depth discussion and variety of different points raised... Much appreciated!!

Hi everyone, many thanks for interesting discussion, thoughts and insights
A couple of points
ANPS lists (and sells) the M parvistaminea as a local species but also for example Acacia decurrens, so I'm not sure whether ANPS is the best reference.
The specimens that Max recorded here are most likely part of the plantings along Fed highway along with species such as Knife-leaved Wattle, Snowy River Wattle and other Australian Exotics. The largest specimen that we found inside nature reserve is close to the Fed Highway https://canberra.naturemapr.org/sightings/4497956, and grows at the bottom of a disturbed drainage line - I think this is not an indicator of its local status rather I think its source are nearby Fed H'way plantings - I do wonder though what distributes the seeds - ants perhaps?
We find groups of small shrubs in the reserve all close to Fed H'way; I doubt the grassy woodland adjoining Fed Highway with its shallow soils and limestone outcrop is the natural habitat of the species..
Friends of Mt Majuras approach in general is not necessarily to remove non locals; a rather extreme example is the group of Arizona Cypresses (Cupressus arizonica (Arizona Cypress)) which we haven't touched for 10 years and only acted when we noted recruitment in the last year which was probably triggered by consecutive LaNinas.
Another hotly discussed species is Sifton bush which I consider introduced but never considered a problem until it exploded in the last 2 years and at one location with over 300 in a patch of perhaps 200square meters and radiating out they made me really nervous because of the nearby Canberra Spider Orchids.