Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Gmelina leichhardtii
Common name
White beech
Family
Lamiaceae
Where found
Rainforest and near streams. Coast and ranges north of Berry.
Notes
Tree to 40 m high, often semi-deciduous. Fruit fleshy. Trunks of older trees with basal flanges. Bark greyish or brownish, becoming scaly. Young stems densely hairy with fawn simple hairs, remaining hairy or becoming hairless. Leaves opposite each other, 8–20 cm long, 50–180 mm wide, margins entire (or irregularly toothed in juvenile trees), somewhat leathery, upper surface dark green and almost hairless, lower surface fawnish hairy and with prominently raised veins. Flowers creamy-white with yellow and purple markings, 20–25 mm long, tubular, 2-lipped, 5-lobed. Flowers in more or less pyramidal clusters 10–25 cm long. Fruit blue to purple when ripe, flattened globular, 15–25 mm in diameter.
Family was Verbenaceae.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Gmelina~leichhardtii (accessed 22 January, 2021)
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