Discovery
First found by timber cutters south of Cairns in the late 19th century, then thought to be extinct. The Ribbonwood was then brought to the attention of the German botanist Ludwig Diels, who described the species in the genus Calycanthus as C. australiense in 1902, a remarkable disjunction for this otherwise North American genus. It was later believed to be extinct again, because when Diels finally returned to the location where this tree was found, the area had been cleared for a sugar cane farm.
The species was re-rediscovered in 1971, after the poisonous seeds of the plant were found in the stomachs of dying cattle in the region. In 1972, the Australian botanist T. S. Blake reassigned it to the new family Idiospermaceae and the genus Idiospermum (idio-, "unusual", and spermum, "seed"). In its 2003 revision, the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group retained it in the new genus, but restored the species to the family Calycanthaceae.
Read more about this topic: Idiospermum
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