Hibbertia calycina

Lesser Guinea-flower at Belconnen, ACT

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Identification history

Hibbertia calycina	7 Aug 2023	Tapirlord
Hibbertia stricta	7 Aug 2023	natureguy
Hibbertia sp.	7 Aug 2023	lbradley

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15 comments

lbradley wrote:

7 Aug 2023

I thought h. stricta too but Ciaran told me last year that we only have h. calycina and h. obtusifolia in AB.
h. stricta hasn't been recorded in AB but has been in Bruce.

lbradley wrote:

7 Aug 2023

Luke and I vote h. stricta so I say we go with h. stricta. Isn't CNM a democracy?

natureguy wrote:

7 Aug 2023

Well I wasn't 100% certain, it just didn't quite look right for calycina from my experience and more like stricta, but would be good to see Ciaran's reasoning first, because I'm sure he has a solid basis for his ID.

Tapirlord wrote:

7 Aug 2023

Hibbertia, much like Senecio and the leucopogon/styphelia complex has undergone pretty serious revision in recent times. So, knowing this, it is worth pointing out that despite the fact that at least 6 different names are used in the ACT, we only have 4 local species.

Hibbertia obtusifolia - Common, and readily identified
Hibbertia ericifolia - (syn hibbertia serpyllifolia), recorded only infrequently but readily identified
Hibbertia calycina - (spilt from hibbertia riparia), common, particularly on BM sandstone
Hibbertia riparia - (syn hibbertia stricta), currently unclear

In terms of this plant, I went and keyed it using (Toelken, H.R., 1996). Which yields the following:

Hibbertia calycina:
-Leaves with pointed or beaked apex, lower surface glabrous or with simple hairs

Hibbertia riparia
-Leaves with apex obtuse to rounded rarely acute when young, lower surface and/or margins with stellate, or stellate and simple hairs

This plant has beaked leaf tips and hence is H.calycina. I would say three things about this group generally.

1. I cannot vouch for the consistency of our treatment of Hibbertia species on CNM, particularly given the difficulty of this genus. I will review all our Hibbertia eventually, but for now please consider all the H.strica sighting misidentified with the exception of the sighting below (note the leaf tips).
Hibbertia stricta

2. Hibbertia riparia, is an excellent example of a "catch all name" and I wouldn't be surpised to see further spilts in the future.

3. Whilst I normally would advertise identifying plants off "the vibe", in some cases it two species are just similar morphologically to do this. H.riparia, is notorious for having been spilt several times into many similar species for which the differences are not obivious hence we should treat this complex with caution. So Luke, I would encourage using botanical features here, rather than your experience (although that is a fantastic tool otherwise).

Tapirlord wrote:

7 Aug 2023

That's the link sorry Hibbertia stricta (A Guinea-flower)

Tapirlord wrote:

7 Aug 2023

Also Lisa, my Philosophy with IDs is that the correct identification should always take priority. So this may mean CNM deviates from a democratic process at times 😉

lbradley wrote:

7 Aug 2023

According to https://apps.lucidcentral.org/plants_se_nsw/text/entities/hibbertia_calycina.htm calycina has 5 petals. Mine has more than 5 petals.

lbradley wrote:

7 Aug 2023

OK there are only 5 :-(

lbradley wrote:

7 Aug 2023

I was obviously joking about democracy. Science reigns. But I kept reading. It says:
The main character that distinguishes it from Hibbertia stricta is the presence of simple hairs on the calyx (usually over/with stalked stellate hairs).
So, I'll return and look for simple hairs.

lbradley wrote:

7 Aug 2023

OK I give up. Mine definitely does not meet the requirements.

ACT. Hibbertia stricta seems have a much more restricted distribution than Hibbertia calycina and is only associated with open forest on skeletal soils; of the three locations where Rosemary has now seen it, the forest has been dominated by Eucalyptus macrorhyncha +/- Eucalyptus rossii in two locations, and by Callitris endlicheri in the third location. It’s a much larger plant than Hibbertia calycina (more shrub-like, and can be to about 0.5 m tall) with very tangled branching. The calyx is covered in small stalked stellate hairs and lacks any simple hairs. The midrib on the lower leaf surface bulges above the curved down leaf margins (the midrib is very rounded in transverse section, not flattish the way Hibbertia calycina is). The photos at https://canberra.naturemapr.org/Community/Sighting/4184542 give a good idea of both the look of the plant and habitat. (Personal communication from Rosemary Purdie, 13 January 2019. She used a binocular microscope for looking at the sepals. A macro app on a phone/tablet might manage)

natureguy wrote:

7 Aug 2023

Thanks, great to have all this commentary on here, and great to also have some in depth answers to clear things up here, thank you both. And yes thanks for your comments about the Hibbertias. I do know they're quite a challenging and complicated group both to identify, and also taxonomically. Definitely great to go through resources like the key which I should do more of, just sometimes I don't always have the time to get there if I'm just doing a quick check of CNM between things (unfortunately a busy schedule with studies, etc). Hence my suggestion here. If I leave a suggestion on a record it's usually either a) I'm not 100% confident to make a confirmation, or b) need to check further resources at a later time, in this case a combination of both. And it's also usually helpful to stimulate discussion or ID's being made because then Ciaran (or others) will chip in with their thoughts and identifications, which is always great to double check and clarify things. I hope this logic kind of makes sense, its just the way I tend to sort through things on here. Definitely also important to keep the ID's all correct, and that is also why suggestions, and having multiple moderators are both great tools to be able to double check things and ensure its right. There are many instances where the moderators on here correct each other and contribute to the ID's collectively which is always great to have, as sometimes different people will bring different things to the table that others might not recognise, or even just correct simpler mistakes. Having a democratic system is always great and something we should strive for, but I do really like the system on here, of using comments and suggestions. This helps create good discussions and allows a solid ID to be formed. The use of comments and suggestions is very useful, and myself (and I presume the other moderators) always do try to respond to any queries or discussion that people may have regarding the sightings, or ID's that we have put. On the other hand, some other platforms that rely on a voting system (for example, iNaturalist) can become quite messy, if sometimes a lot of people agree on an ID that's wrong, and then its very hard to correct it since some people may no longer be active or not remove their suggestion, or even not see it. So having that confirmation system by the moderators on here works quite well in my view. Once again thanks for this useful discussion here, I hope it helped :)

lbradley wrote:

8 Aug 2023

Is there any where on CNM that talks about keying and the tools that can be used?

I stumbled across https://apps.lucidcentral.org/plants_se_nsw/text/intro/index.html last night.

Tapirlord wrote:

8 Aug 2023

I wouldn't recommend using a key if you don't have to, but the best keys for plants are in Vicflora. Plantnet, and the key that you've linked in (which is based off it), are quite out of date and are unlikely to be updated. I have access to uni databases so where possible will use papers, but otherwise Vicflora.

Mike wrote:

8 Aug 2023

Identification of Hibbertia has been discussed on CNM for years, including Hibbertia calycina (Lesser Guinea-flower) recorded in 2015.

lbradley wrote:

8 Aug 2023

Thanks Ciaran. As you know, I’m trying to become better at plant identification. I’ve got a plant at KV that I’ve been trying to sort. I’ve reached out to a couple of people on iNat with no luck. I now think I know what it is but will monitor to confirm. Keying might have helped me initially because I was pretty off base. You guys are great but it would be nice for me to become more independent and you are a limited resource. The plant has been sitting a while waiting identication. And yes, I know the situation with SCNM. Anyway, I figure it will be good for me to play with keys. Who knows, one day I might develop better skills.

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