Lomatia tasmanica

Common card · No. 337671

Lomatia tasmanica, commonly known as King's lomatia or King's holly, is a shrub of the family Proteaceae native to Tasmania. Growing up to 8 metres (26 ft) tall, the plant has shiny green pinnate leaves and bears red flowers in the summer, but yields neither fruit nor seeds. King's lomatia is unusual because all of the remaining plants are genetically identical clones. Because it has three sets of chromosomes (a triploid) and is therefore sterile, reproduction occurs only vegetatively: when a branch falls, that branch grows new roots, establishing a new plant that is genetically identical to its parent. Charles Denison "Deny" King discovered the plant in 1934, though it was not described until 1967 by botanist Winifred Mary Curtis of the Tasmanian Herbarium. Only two wild populations of King's lomatia are known to exist in south-west Tasmania.

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