Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Celtis sinensis

Leaves and fruit. Photographer Kenpei, Japan

Bark. Photographer Zoya Akulova, unknown place.

Tree. Photographer Zoya Akulova, unknown place.

Common name

Japanese hackberry, Chinese celtis, Celtis, Hackberry

Family

Cannabaceae

Where found

Rainforest margins, disturbed urban bushland, woodland, parks and gardens, roadsides, waste areas, disturbed sites, and along streams. Sydney area, Blue Mountains, and Wollongong region.

Notes

Introduced deciduous tree to 30 m high. Fruit fleshy. Trunk buttressed in older trees. Bark grey, smooth, becoming rough and longitudinally furrowed. Younger stems somewhat zig-zagged, green or pale brown, surface relatively rough, sparsely covered in lenticels, hairless, or hairy with a warty base on very new growth. Leaves alternating up the stems, 4–10 cm long, 20–50 mm wide, upper surface smooth, glossy, and hairless, sometimes becoming rough with hairs with a warty base as the leaves age, lower surface hairless except for some hairs along the midvein, or slighty hairy, margins toothed, mostly in the upper half of the leaf. Male, female, and bisexual flowers on the same plant, or male and female flowers on the same plant. Flowers greenish, with 4-5 'petals', free from each other, about 2 mm long. Male flowers in short clusters away from the branch tips. Bisexual flowers in groups of 1-3 at the base of  the leaves near the tips of the branches. Fruit maturing from green to orange or reddish brown, globular, 7–8 mm long. Flowers winter-spring.

Was Family Ulmaceae.

General Biosecurity Duty all NSW.  General Biosecurity Duty with additional restrictions in the South East area, NSW. 

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Celtis~sinensis 
(accessed 9 April 2021)

Weeds of Australia Biosecurity Queensland Edition description:  http://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/weeds/data/media/Html/celtis_sinensis.htm 
(accessed 9 April 2021)