Quintinia verdonii
| Grey Possumwood | |
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| young tree at Mount Banda Banda, Australia | |
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| drawing by Margaret Flockton | |
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| Species: | Q. verdonii
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| Binomial name | |
| Quintinia verdonii | |
Quintinia verdonii, known as the Grey Possumwood is a tree of eastern Australia. It's mostly found in rainforests at high altitude. The range of natural distribution is between the Barrington Tops region of New South Wales and the Blackall Range in the state of Queensland.
Description
A small to medium-sized tree to 17 metres tall[1] and a stem diameter of 30 cm. It may be distinguished from the related Possumwood by the different bark and the branchlets being paler. The Possumwood has minute reddish glands under the leaf where the Grey Possumwood has clear glands. The flowers of the Possumwood are in panicles where the Grey Possumwood has flowers on racemes.
trunk & branchlets
The trunk is mostly straight and cylindrical. Bark is smooth, pale grey and somewhat soft and corky. Small branches are fairly thick, and smooth. Branchlets have scars of fallen leaves, and the ends are the branchlets are purple or dark red.
leaves
Leaves are alternate on the stem, oval-elliptical to elliptical with a short blunt tip. The upper surface is dark green, underneath a paler green. 7 to 15 cm long, 1.5 to 5 cm wide on mature foliage. The underside of the leaves have tiny colourless glands. Leaf stalks are twisted, between 10 and 20 mm long. Leaf veins are raised and conspicuous on the underside. Usually 12 to 20 in number, with an angle of 75 degrees to the mid rib. Veins are mostly straight, though curved where meeting the leaf margin. Coppice leaves may be faintly toothed.
flowers
White, cream or yellow coloured flowers form in the upper axils[2] on a single raceme from the months of September to November. The fruit capsule is small, hemispherical in shape, ripening from December to January.
Germination
Wind blown seeds often germinate in the form of a hemiepiphyte on the trunks of rocks and tree ferns such as Dicksonia antarctica. The seeds are tiny and seed regeneration requires a satisfactory substrate. It's advised to lightly cover the seeds with a seed raising potting mix.[3] Regeneration from seeds and cuttings is not difficult.
Timber & cultivation
The soft pink timber has no particular commercial use. However, the prominent flowering display gives this plant horticultural potential.[4]
Naming
The specific epithet honours George Frederic Verdon.[5] The plant was described by Ferdinand Mueller from specimens collected by Hermann Beckler at the Manning & Hasting Rivers.
References
- ^ http://bie.ala.org.au/species/urn:lsid:biodiversity.org.au:apni.taxon:376818 Quintinia verdonii - Atlas of Living Australia, retrieved June 21, 2016
- ^ http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Quintinia~verdonii Quintinia verdonii at NSW Flora Online, text by Gwen Harden, retrieved June 21, 2016
- ^ Floyd, A.G., Rainforest Trees of Mainland South-eastern Australia, Inkata Press 2008, ISBN 978-0-9589436-7-3 page 321
- ^ Floyd, A.G., Rainforest Trees of Mainland South-eastern Australia, Inkata Press 1989, ISBN 0-909605-57-2 page 130
- ^ http://adc.library.usyd.edu.au/view?docId=split/ozlit/xml-main-texts/p00108v6-source-bibl-17.xml&chunk.id=item-17&toc.id=item-17&database=&collection=&brand=default Quintinia verdonii no. 197 - University of Sydney, Forest Flora of New South Wales 1914, retrieved June 21, 2016