Author:
Jan Scholten
Book:
Qjurious
Type:
Info
Chapter:
3-655.47.02
Blepharocarya involucrigera
English: North Queensland bollygum; Northern bollygum; Rose butternut.
Name: Blepharocarya comes from the Greek blepharon (eyelid), carya (nut), refers to the fruit having hairs around the margin; involucre (a whorl of bracts around flowers or fruit), and -ger (bearing or borne on).
Region: Queensland, Australia.
Habitat: well developed rainforest; monsoon forest and vine thickets; from sea level to 800 m.
Use: wood as decorative timber, for cabinetmaking, flooring, cooperage.
Botany
Tree; 15 to 40 m in height; dense rounded canopy.
Stem: bark exudes a toxic, allergenic resin.
Leaves: compound with 10 to 18 opposite leaflets, up to 15 cm long, 4.5 cm wide, elliptic to ovate in shape.; dark green above and paler beneath when mature, rosey red when young; rachis flattened on the upper surface with angular edges.
Inflorescence: large terminal panicles.
Flowers: small; pale green to white; flowering in spring; dioecious.
Fruits: small; flattened; around 4 mm by 8 mm; surrounded by small hairs on the marginal edge; enclosed within a green, fibrous involucre, which dries and opens to release the fruit, becoming brown and woody in the process, persist on the tree.
Dispersion: by birds, Double-eyed Fig Parrots, King Parrots.