Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Androcalva rossii
Southern brush kurrajong
Malvaceae
Forest, shrubland, and along streams. Coast and ranges south from Gulaga National Park, north of Bermagui.
Tree or shrub to 10 m tall, rhizomatous. Stems with long fawn or golden to rusty brown stellate hairs about 1 mm long (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see). Lenticels prominent. Older stems almost hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 5-31 cm long, 20-260 mm wide, upper surface with scattered hairs, lower surface grey or greenish white stellate hairy, margins irregularly toothed or lobed, tips with a long point. Flowers white or cream, sometimes pinkish, 9-12 mm in diameter, with 5 petals and 5 staminodes that look like petals. Flowers in branched clusters of 10-60 flowers. Flowers Aug.–Oct.
Family was Sterculiaceae.
Vulnerable Vic.
Difficult to distinguish from Androcalva fraseri in southern NSW. It has larger leaves and larger stellate hars on the branchlets, leaves, and flower clusters.
VICFLORA description: https://vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au/flora/taxon/0c9d0676-acf8-4625-9584-f95700fdd30b (accessed 6 February 2021)
Description partly based on that in the paper below.
Guymer, G.P., (2005) New species of Commersonia J.R.Forst. & G.Forst. (Sterculiaceae) from Eastern Australia and Vanuatu. Austrobaileya 7(1): 238-239
This identification key and fact sheets are available as a free mobile application: