Sapindaceae

Alectryon diversifolius

(Synonym: Heterodendrum diversifolium)

SCRUB BOONAREE

Shrub or small tree to 4 m high; bark greyish, rough throughout. New growth reddish. Buds and young stems hairy with short spreading hairs, stems becoming hairless; stipules absent.

Leaves simple, often clustered on short lateral branchlets or alternate, variable in shape; lamina ± oblong to oblanceolate to cuneate, 1.5–6 cm long, 0.5–1.5 cm wide, apex usually obtuse and spinose, base usually long-tapered, margins entire or with 1–3 lobes ending in spinose teeth (leaves on juvenile growth irregularly lobed with lobes ending in spinose teeth), stiff and leathery, surfaces hairless; pinnately veined with 8–11 pairs of lateral veins, distinct on both surfaces, making wide angles with the midvein; domatia absent; petiole 2–4 mm long.

Inflorescences axillary, flowers solitary or in few-flowered clusters, pedicels c. 3 mm long. Flowers functionally unisexual and plants monoecious, whitish, yellow or green or reddish, 3–3.5 mm diam., calyx shallowly lobed, c. 2.5 mm long, petals absent; male flowers with 6–8 stamens and a rudimentary ovary; female flowers with staminodes and a superior ovary of 2–4 fused carpels.

Fruit dry, a capsule, unlobed to 2-lobed and lobes globose, 10–14 mm diam., hairless; seed 1 per lobe, brown or black; aril  red to orange, fleshy and granular, cupular and partly covering seed to about halfway.

Illustration of leaves & fruit

Habitat and Distribution:

In and especially adjacent to VTs and rarely DRf; near Gunnedah, N.S.W., but mainly north from Yallaroi, N.S.W. (S of Goondiwindi), to near Bowen, N Qld, and west to Carnarvon N.P. in Qld; more common in Brigalow communities.

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