Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Streblus brunonianus

Male flowers and leaves. Photographer Mark Marathon, Mount Etna Caves National Park, Central Qld

Female flower and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Branches with male flower buds. Photographer Mark Marathon, Mount Etna Caves National Park, Central Qld

Common name

Whalebone tree, White handlewood

Family

Moraceae

Where found

Forest. Coast and ranges north from Milton.

Notes

Shrub or tree to 30 m high. Fruit fleshy. Bark tough, pulling away in strips, green to greyish. Branches with raised lenticels and transverse ridges. Stems with lenticels, sparsely to densely hairy, becoming hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, usually 1–8 cm long, 10–50 mm wide, surfaces rough, upper surface glossy, lower surface hairy with fine hairs or rough, margins toothed to almost entire, tips pointed. Juvenile leaves to 20 cm long, often narrow, lobed at the base. Male and female flowers on different plants. Flowers white, with 4 'petals' about 1-2 mm long. Male spikes about 10–50 mm long, female spikes about 5-30 mm long, or with 1-4 flowers. Fruit yellow to red, oval, 4-6 mm long, ripe Jan.-Apr.

Separated from Streblus pendulinus, which in the strict sense is now considered to occur only on Norfolk Island.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Streblus~brunonianus (accessed 7 February, 2021)