Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition

Melicope broadbentiana F.M.Bailey


Herb (herbaceous or woody, under 1 m tall)
Shrub (woody or herbaceous, 1-6 m tall)
Tree
Click/tap on images to enlarge
Flower and buds. © Barry Jago
Flowers and buds. © CSIRO
Dehiscing fruit. © Barry Jago
Dehiscing fruit. © W. T. Cooper
Scale bar 10mm. © CSIRO
Cotyledon stage, epigeal germination. © CSIRO
10th leaf stage. © CSIRO
Family

Bailey, F.M. (1891) Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock. Botany Bulletin 2: 9. Type: Palm Camp (4,000 feet altitude), Bellenden-Ker, F. M. Bailey; holo: BRI; iso: MEL.

Common name

Euodia, False; False Euodia

Stem

Usually grows into a small tree not exceeding 30 cm dbh but also flowers and fruits as a shrub.

Leaves

Leaf blades about 4.5-15 x 2-5 cm, aromatic when crushed. Oil dots very numerous. Flat glandular areas visible on the underside of the leaf blade. Lateral veins forming loops inside the blade margin.

Flowers

Inflorescence not exceeding the leaves and usually much shorter than the petioles. Petals glabrous, about 3.5 mm long, oil dots numerous and conspicuous when viewed with a lens. Four short staminodes alternating with the four longer stamens. Staminal filaments hairy. Disk at the base of the ovary but not enclosing it. Style glabrous.

Fruit

Infructescence not exceeding the leaves and usually shorter than the petioles. Fruits dehisce leaving the seeds attached by a slender, curved funicle-like structure about 4-5 mm long. Seeds +/- reniform, about 6 x 3.5 mm, testa rugose, hilum obscured by the aril.

Seedlings

Cotyledons ovate to broadly ovate or elliptic, marginal teeth small. Oil dots small, visible with a lens. At the tenth leaf stage: leaflet blades glabrous, middle leaflet elliptic, lateral leaflets unequal-sided at the base; oil dots small, visible with a lens. Seed germination time 67 to 94 days.

Distribution and Ecology

Endemic to NEQ. Altitudinal range from 150-1150 m. Grows as an understory tree in well developed rain forest on a variety of sites. This species is favoured by disturbance and is a characteristic component of rain forest regrowth.

Natural History & Notes

Ripe fruit complete with shiny blue-black seeds are used as a bower decoration by the Golden Bowerbird. Cooper & Cooper (1994).

Synonyms
Melicope dielsii Lauterb., Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 55: 244(1918), Type: Queensland, Lower Russel River, 6 June 1902, Diels 8504; holo: B (lost); lecto: WRSL. Fide Hartley (2001). Melicope glabrifolia C.T.White & W.D.Francis, Bot. Bull. Dept. Agric., Queensland 3: 22(1920), Type: Queensland, Atherton, jan. 1918, C. T. White; holo: BRI. Melicope simplicifolia Domin, Biblioth. Bot. 89: 288(1927), Type: Queensland, Harveys Creek, Dec. 1909, Domin; lecto: PR. Fide Hartley (2001).
RFK Code
986
Copyright © CSIRO 2020, all rights reserved.