Melicope broadbentiana F.M.Bailey

Rutaceae

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.

Euodia, False; False Euodia

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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).