Owenia venosa F.Muell.

Mueller, F.J.H. von in Hooker, W.J. (ed.) (1857), New genera discovered during the North Australian Exploring Expedition. Hooker's Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany 9: 304. Type: "Hab. Ad ripas rivulorum exsiccantium tractus montain inter flumina Dawson et Burnett."

Tulipwood, Sour Plum, Rose Apple, Rose Almond, Crows Apple

Tree to 20 m, bark brown or greyish, scaly. Stems glabrous, young parts ± resinous, drying to whitish on older stems.

Leaves alternate, compound, with 6-10 (-14) mostly opposite leaflets, occasionally sub-opposite or alternate, paripinnate; leaf axis or rhachis with a terminal pair of leaflets. Rhachis and upper part of petiole ± winged. Stipules absent. Petiole 3-8 cm long; petiolules 0-1 mm long. Leaflet blades oblong-elliptic to oblong-obovate, 2.5-10 cm long, 1.3-4 cm wide, often unequally-sided, base attenuate, cuneate to rounded, often asymmetrical, margin entire, apex obtuse and sometimes finely notched. Leaves glabrous, with 10-15 lateral veins. Domatia absent.

Inflorescence axillary, paniculate, functionally unisexual, although can appear bisexual with apparently viable stamens and ovules, plants dioecious. Pedicels c. 1 mm long. Flowers actinomorphic, 5-merous. Sepals 5, free, orbicular c. 2 mm long, margin sparsely ciliate, green. Petals 5, oblong, lanceolate, c. 4-5 mm long, free, glabrous, white to green. Male flowers with 10 anthers attached to upper margin of lobed staminal tube (lobing caused by bifid appendages extending beyond anther attachment). Staminal tube lobing of uneven length with longer lobes alternating with shorter lobes or irregularly lobed; rudimentary ovary present. Female flowers with 10 staminodes; ovary 2-4-locular, surrounded by a yellow or greenish-yellow disk; stigma conical, sessile or on short style.

Fruit a fleshy drupe, globose, 2-4 cm long, pink or reddish. Seeds 2-4, ovoid to orange-segment-shaped, with thin sarcotesta within a woody endocarp or stone, up to c. 6 mm thick.

Features not available.

Endemic to Queensland, occurs in CEQ from near Rockhampton southwards to near Warwick (SE Qld). Grows in dry rainforest and vine thickets.

This profile information and associated coding has been adapted from Cooper & Cooper (2004), Harden et al. (2014) and Mabberley (2013).