Appearance
"Bursaria spinosa" has a variable habit, and can grow anywhere from 1 to 12 m high. The dark grey bark is furrowed. The smooth branches are sometimes armed with thorns, and the leaves are arranged alternately along the stems or clustered around the nodes and have a pine-like fragrance when bruised. Linear to oval or wedge-shaped, they are 2–4.3 cm long and 0.3–1.2 cm wide with a rounded apex. The fragrant flowers can occur at any time of year, but mainly appear in the summer. They are arranged in leafy pyramid-shaped panicles.
Distribution
In the Sydney region, it grows on clay- and shale-based soils, as an understory plant in association with grey box and forest red gum as well as the grass "Themeda australis". It can form thickets on farmland which is ungrazed. In Tasmania, it grows extensively on rocky hills with shallow soils, amid open eucalypt forests and grassland on the islands east coast and Midlands regions. In the Southern Midlands and around Hobart, it grows extensively on open slopes where it forms large stands of stunted shrubs amidst grazing land.Habitat
In the Sydney region, it grows on clay- and shale-based soils, as an understory plant in association with grey box and forest red gum as well as the grass "Themeda australis". It can form thickets on farmland which is ungrazed. In Tasmania, it grows extensively on rocky hills with shallow soils, amid open eucalypt forests and grassland on the islands east coast and Midlands regions. In the Southern Midlands and around Hobart, it grows extensively on open slopes where it forms large stands of stunted shrubs amidst grazing land.Living for 25 to 60 years, "Bursaria spinosa" can resprout from its woody base after bushfire. Highly rhizomatous, plants of a stand are often genetically a single plant. Despite being genetically identical, different plants and even single shoots can be very distinct in appearance. Its seed is wind-dispersed and it is a colonising plant.
A wide variety of insects visit the flowers of "Bursaria spinosa", the most important pollinators of which appear to be beetles of several families. Common visitors recorded from field work around Armidale were jewel beetle species such as "Curis splendens" and "Stigmodera inflata"; longicorn beetles including "Amphirhoe sloanei" and "Tropocalymma dimidiatum"; scarab beetles; and tumbling flower beetles. Beetles and scoliid wasps all carried significant amounts of pollen. Other visitors such as flies and butterflies carried much lower amounts. The larvae of the jewel beetle species "Astraeus crassus" live in tunnels in dead and dying branches. Caterpillars which feed on "Bursaria spinosa" include "Proselena annosana", two-ribbed arctiid and bark looper moth, while those of the clouded footman graze on algae and lichens which grow on the branches.
The bright copper and ant species "Anonychomyrma nitidiceps" form a complex symbiotic relationship on "Bursaria spinosa". Butterflies lay their eggs on the underside of the leaves, and the caterpillars feed on the leaves before pupating in the soil at the foot of the plant. The ants excavate chambers in the soil where the caterpillars sleep and later pupate, and accompany the caterpillars when the latter are feeding. They are thought to feed on the caterpillars' secretions. Caterpillars of the fiery copper are likewise accompanied by ants of the genus "Notoncus", and the third species, the endangered Bathurst copper, also breeds and feeds exclusively on the subspecies "lasiophylla" in Central New South Wales.
Cattle and rabbits graze on young plants.
Uses
The drug aesculin is harvested from the plant in the Sydney region. Although its thorns make it unpopular in cultivation, "Bursaria spinosa" provides nectar for butterflies and a haven for small birds.References:
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