Brachychiton bidwillii Hook.

Malvaceae

Hooker, W.J. (ed.) (1859), Botanical Magazine 85: t. 5133. Type: "sent to the Royal Gardens of Kew in 1851, from the Widebay district, north-east Australia, by the late Mr. Bidwill.”

Little Kurrajong; Dwarf Kurrajong; Rusty Kurrajong.

Shrub to 4 m tall, deciduous. Bark pale brown or grey, smooth or finely fissured. Branchlets densely to sparely hairy with stellate hairs.

Leaf blade dull above, paler below, new growth pink. Stipules caducous, linear triangular to subulate, about 4-18 mm long, covered with short stellate hairs. Petioles terete, 1.5-13 cm long. Mature leaf blades about 5-25 cm long, 6-17 cm wide, deeply 3-5 (-7) lobed, margins entire. Palmately veined, venation raised to impressed above and prominently raised below leaf blade. Indumentum of upper surface with simple and stellate hairs rarely glabrous, of lower surface with dense stellate hairs. Juvenile leaf blades palmate, deeply 5-7 lobed, stellate hairy above and below.

Inflorescence axillary, ramiflorous sometimes recorded as cauliflorous, paniculate, 7-12 (-35) flowered. Plant monoecious, flowers unisexual. Perianth tubular, campanulate (bell shaped) 5 (-6) lobed, about 35-45 mm long, 15-20 mm diam., stellate hairy on the outer surface and stellate tomentose inside becoming glabrous in tube, pink to orange-red. Floral nectaries distinct, 10 in total, 2 opposite each perianth lobe, 1.8-2.4 mm long towards base of tube. Male flowers: anthers, at least 15, 20 or 25 borne on a stalk or staminal column to about 30 mm long, anthers yellow, to c. 2.7 mm long; remnant ovary or carpelodes surrounded by anthers at apex of column. Female flowers: staminodes 20 or 25 to c. 1.5 mm long at base of ovary; ovary of 5 free carpels, stellate hairy, to about 5-7 mm long; styles about 9-12 mm long, stigmas about 3-5 mm long.

Follicle, khaki, scabrid (rough) stellate hairy outside, boat shaped, ellipsoid, about (5.5) 7-11 cm long, 3-3.5 cm wide, shortly beaked, stellate hairy to bristly inside. Seeds (10-) 18-29 per follicle, about 10-11.5 mm long, 6.5-7 mm diam., finely rugose, oblong-ovoid.

Features not available.

Endemic to Queensland, occurs in the southern part of NEQ where it is only recorded from Magnetic Island, and in CEQ near Marlborough southwards to south-eastern Queensland. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 600 m. Grows in vine thickets and vine thicket margins with eucalypt woodlands, on slopes, ridges and hilltops.

Sterculia bidwillii (Hook.) Benth., Fl. Austral. 1: 228 (1863). Clompanus bidwillii (Hook.) Kuntze, Rev. Gen. Plant. 1: 78 (1891). Brachychiton paradoxus subsp. bidwillii (Hook.) A.Terracc. Bollettino delle r. Orto Botanico e Giardino Coloniale di Palermo 1(2): 60 (1897). Brachychiton pubescens C.Moore in F.Muell, The Plants Indigenous to the Colony of Victoria 1: 157(1862). Type: "from the dry ranges beyond Ipswich.” Brachychiton paradoxus subsp. pubescens (C.Moore) A.Terracc. comb. nov.  Bollettino delle r. Orto Botanico e Giardino Coloniale di Palermo 1(2): 52, 61(1897).

3607