Brachychiton viridiflorus (W.Fitzg.) Guymer

Malvaceae

Guymer, G.P. (1988) Australian Systematic Botany 1(3): 290.

Kurrajong

Shrubs or small tree, 2-5 m tall, deciduous. Bark black or dark grey, deeply longitudinally fissured and tessellated. Young branchlets stellate-puberulent.

Leaf blades shiny and velutinous above, white stellate-velutinous below, entire, rarely shallowly 3-lobed, cordiform-ovate, ovate to broadly ovate, 4.5-8 cm x 4.5-7 cm; petioles 1.5-3.5 cm long. Pores in the twig pith quite large, visible to the naked eye.

Inflorscence 1-5-flowered; flowers pale green, tinged white or pink; 20-25 long x 22-26mm diameter; perianth shortly 5-lobed; nectaries 5, 3-lobed. Male flowers with androgynophore 13-15 mm long; stamens 25. Female flowers with androgynophore 3-4 mm long, 25 staminodes.

Fruits pale yellow stellate-hirtellous, about 6-9 x 2.8-3.8 cm. Seeds about 7-9 x 5.5-6.5 mm.

Cotyledons enclosed in the seed coat, attached to the hypocotyl by long petioles. A number of cataphylls (3 or 4) are produced before the first true leaves. First pair of true leaves orbicular to cordate, both the upper and lower surfaces clothed in pale brown hairs. Stipules linear, about 2-3 mm long, hairy. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf blade usually 3-lobed, cordate at the base, leaf blade with hairs on both the upper and lower surfaces, most hairs simple but scattered, stellate hairs also present. Seed germination time 7 days.

Endemic to WA. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 600 m. Grows in open forest and woodland but also found in and on the margins of monsoon forest.

Sterculia viridiflora W.Fitzg., Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Western Australia 3: 177(1918), Type: Gorges near the Isdell River; summits of Isdell and Edkins Ranges; Mt. Rason (W.V.F.).