Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Xanthorrhoea arborea

Top of plant with spent flowers. Photographer Arthur Chapman, east of Olinda near Rylstone

Plant. Photographer Joe Lipson, Garigal National Park, Sydney

Back of leaf. Photographer Joe Lipson, Garigal National Park, Sydney

Common name

A grass-tree

Family

Xanthorrhoeaceae

Where found

Forest, usually in sheltered sites, in sand or on sandstone. Coast and ranges mostly north form Wollongong. One sighting east of Goulburn.

Notes

Tree-like perennial herb. Trunk usually to 2 m high, single or branched. Trunk with a pithy core surrounded by the flattened brown glossy bases of old leaves. Scape below the flower spike 1.3–2.1 m long, 12–16 mm in diameter; spike 100–150 cm long, 25–28 mm in diameter. Leaves clustered at the top of the trunk, forming one to many crowns, each an uneven hemisphere, or the older leaves falling away from the new upright tuft. Leaves narrowly diamond shaped, to flat and narrow or concave in cross section, 5–7 mm wide, 0.8–1.9 mm thick, green or dull green, glaucous. Individual flowers with 6 white 'petals' in two rows, outer 'petals' papery or more or less membranous, inner 'petals' membranous. Bracts surrounding the flowers obscure. Bracts between the flowers pointed, and fringed to moderately hairy. Flowering: January–April.

Protected NSW.  

PlantNET description with photos and line drawing:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Xanthorrhoea~arborea (accessed 12 February, 2021)