Acronychia baeuerlenii

Byron Bay acronychia
Byron Bay acronychia at Mount Annan Botanic Garden, Australia
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Rosids
Order: Sapindales
Family: Rutaceae
Genus: Acronychia
Species: A. baeuerlenii
Binomial name
Acronychia baeuerlenii
T.G.Hartley

Acronychia baeuerlenii is a rare shrub or small tree growing in the most easterly part of Australia. The Byron Bay acronychia is found between the Richmond River, New South Wales to Lamington National Park just over the border in the state of Queensland.

Habitat

An understorey plant in warm temperate rainforest. Or occasionally in sub tropical rainforest on richer alluvial or basaltic soils, up to 800 metres above sea level.

Description

Growing to around 9 metres tall and a stem diameter of 20 cm, with a crown of glossy green leaves. The trunk is smooth, grey, cylindrical and crooked. Branchlets smooth and green, turning grey with light coloured speckles.

Leaves

Leaves are opposite on the stem, not toothed, shiny bright green with a papery feel. Elliptic to elliptic oblong in shape, blunt at the leaf end, or with a rounded tip. Oil dots seen with a hand lens, being a distance between each other of two to four diameters. Leaves 6 to 11 cm long, 2 to 4 cm wide. Leaf stalk 8 to 18 mm long. The leaves contain a number of essential oils.[1]

Flowers & Fruit

White or cream coloured flowers appear on cymes between October and February. The flower's ovary is not downy as in the similar Acronychia oblongifolia. Fruit matures from March to May. Being a four celled greenish drupe, with eight ribs. 15 mm in diameter. One or two black sticky seeds in each cell, 3 to 5 mm long. Germination from seed is slow and difficult.

References

  1. ↑ Brophy, Joseph J., Robert J. Goldsack, and Paul I. Forster. "Leaf essential oils of the Australian species of Acronychia (Rutaceae)." Journal of Essential Oil Research 16.6 (2004): 597-607.
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