Bowenia

 The genus Bowenia includes two living and two fossil species of cycads in the family Stangeriaceae, sometimes placed in their own family Boweniaceae.[1] They are entirely restricted to Australia. The two living species occur in Queensland. B. spectabilis grows in warm, wet, tropical rainforests, on protected slopes and near streams, primarily in the lowlands of the Wet Tropics Bioregion. However, it has a local form with serrate pinna margins that grows in rainforest, Acacia-dominated transition forest, and also Casuarina-dominated sclerophyll forest on the Atherton Tableland, where it is subject to periodic bushfire. B. serrulata grows in sclerophyll forest and transition forest close to the Tropic of Capricorn.[2][3][4]

Bowenia
Bowenia Spectabilis 2 years.jpg
Scientific classificatione
Kingdom:Plantae
Clade:Tracheophytes
Division:Cycadophyta
Class:Cycadopsida
Order:Cycadales
Family:Stangeriaceae
Subfamily:Bowenioideae
Pilger
Genus:Bowenia
Hook. ex Hook.f.
Species

† Bowenia eocenica
† Bowenia papillosa
Bowenia serrulata
Bowenia spectabilis

SpeciesEdit

ImageScientific nameDistribution
Bowenia serrulata 6.JPGBowenia serrulata Chamb.Queensland
Bowenia spectabilis Daintree 2.JPGBowenia spectabilis HookQueensland


The fossil species Bowenia eocenica is known from deposits in a coal mine in Victoria, Australia, and B. papillosa is known from deposits in New South Wales. Both fossils are of Eocene age, and consist of leaflet fragments.[5]

Bowenia spectabilis in the Daintree Rainforest in northeast Queensland, Australia
Bowenia Lake Tinaroo form in sclerophyll woodland near Lake Tinaroo, Atherton Tableland, far north Queensland
Serrulate margin of the pinnae on a wild plant of Bowenia Lake Tinaroo form, at Lake Tinaroo, Atherton Tableland, Queensland, Australia
Bowenia Lake Tinaroo form in sclerophyll woodland near Lake Tinaroo, Atherton Tableland, far north Queensland
Bowenia serrulata growing in transition forest near Byfield, in the Capricornia region of Queensland, Australia

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article
 Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the 
Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.