Peanut Tree

Sterculia quadrifida

BRANCH CONTACT

kingaroy@npq.org.au

Malvaceae / Sterculiaceae

Sterculia quadrifida

PEANUT TREE, RED-FRUITED KURRAJONG

Small to medium-sized tree to 20 m high, deciduous; bark grey to fawn-grey, smooth or scaly or pimply. Leaves often turning orange before falling. Resting buds covered by several scale leaves, 3–4 mm long, hairy with brownish star hairs, young stems at first hairy, stems becoming hairless; stipules 2, free, linear, 0.7–0.9 mm long.

Leaves simple, alternate and clustered below the expanded resting buds; lamina oblong-ovate, 5–15 cm long, 4–10 cm wide, apex acuminate, base truncate or cordate, margins entire or rarely shallowly lobed, soft, thin, upper surface glossy dark green and hairless, lower surface dull, paler and sparsely to moderately hairy with star hairs; pinnately veined with 4–6 pairs of lateral veins, distinct to prominent on both surfaces, sometimes appearing 3-veined from base with veins extending about halfway up lamina, lateral veins and midvein often yellowish; domatia absent or sometimes several present as small hair tufts; petiole 2–6 cm long, slender with a swelling at each end.

Inflorescences axillary and racemose, often appearing terminal and paniculate, many-flowered. Flowers unisexual and plants monoecious, actinomorphic, 5-merous; perianth petaloid, tubular and 5-lobed in upper half, 5–10 mm long, creamy green with outer surfaces covered in reddish star hairs, perianth often interpreted as a modified calyx and petals absent; male flowers with 10–15 stamens fused into a tube (androgynophore), also with rudimentary carpels; female flowers with 5 partly free carpels and 10–15 staminodes clustered at base of carpels, ovaries superior.

Fruit semi-fleshy to dry, a follicle, ovoid, 5–8 cm long, red; follicles solitary or clustered in groups of 2–5 developed from a single flower; seeds 2–8, dull bluish-black, attached along margins.

Illustration of leaves & fruit