''Euroschinus falcatus'' is a large tree in the mango and cashew family

Anacardiaceae The Anacardiaceae, commonly known as the cashew family or sumac family, are a family of flowering plants, including about 83 genera with about 860 known species. Members of the Anacardiaceae bear fruits that are drupes and in some cases produce ...

, found along almost the entire east coast of Australia from

Cape York Peninsula The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...

Jervis Bay Jervis Bay () is a oceanic bay and village in the Jervis Bay Territory and on the South Coast (New South Wales), South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. A area of land around the southern headland of the bay, known as the Jervis Bay Terri ...

. Common names include blush cudgerie and maiden's blush.

Description

''Euroschinus falcatus'' is a semi-deciduous tree growing up to tall with wrinkly to tessellated grey brown bark. Larger specimens may be

buttressed A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ag ...

. Branchlets and twigs may be either finely hairy or hair-free. The

compound Compound may refer to: Architecture and built environments * Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall ** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struc ...

leaves have between four and ten sickle-shaped leaflets measuring up to . The leaflets have 6 to 11 pairs of lateral veins and are either opposite or alternately arranged, with no true terminal leaflet. Crushed leaves and broken twigs produce a clear sap with an odour similar to mango. The conspicuous

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

s are

panicle In botany, a panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a p ...

s up to long and are covered in fine pale hairs. The fragrant flowers are white, cream or green and held on very short

pedicels In botany, a pedicel is a stem that attaches a single flower to the inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branch ...

(stalks) about long. The is green or yellow with lobes up to long, petals are about long. The fruit is a

drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is a type of fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pip'' (UK), ''pit'' (US), ''stone'', or ''pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed ...

, ellipsoidal or ovoid, and about long. They are green initially, becoming blue-purple or black when ripe, and they contain a single seed.

Taxonomy

This species was first described in 1862 by the British botanist

Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For 20 years he served as director of the Ro ...

, based on specimens from "eastern tropical Australia". In his publication it can be seen that he named the plant ''Euroschinus falcatus'', however the

Australian Plant Name Index The Australian Plant Name Index (APNI) is an online database of all published names of Australian vascular plants. It covers all names, whether current names, synonyms or invalid names. It includes bibliographic and typification details, informati ...

considers the

orthographical variant In biology, within the science of Nomenclature, scientific nomenclature, i.e. the naming of organisms, an orthographical variant (abbreviated orth. var.) in botany or an orthographic error in zoology, is a spelling mistake, typing mistake or writi ...

''Euroschinus falcata'' to be the correct combination, which is at odds with several other authorities such as the

National Herbarium of New South Wales The National Herbarium of New South Wales was established in 1853. The Herbarium has a collection of more than 1.4 million plant specimens, making it the second largest collection of pressed, dried plant specimens in Australia,Thiers, B. ...

, the ''2022 Census of the Queensland flora and fungi'' based on data from the

Queensland Herbarium The Queensland Herbarium (Index Herbariorum code: BRI) is situated at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is part of Queensland's Department of Environment and Science. It is responsible for disc ...

Plants of the World Online Plants of the World Online (POWO) is an online taxonomic database published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. History Following the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew launched Plants of the World Online i ...

, the

Global Biodiversity Information Facility The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around th ...

World Flora Online World Flora Online is an Internet-based compendium of the world's plant species. Description The World Flora Online (WFO) is an open-access database, launched in October 2012 as a follow-up project to The Plant List, with the aim of publishi ...

, and the

Catalogue of Life The Catalogue of Life (CoL) is an online database that provides an index of known species of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms. It was created in 2001 as a partnership between the global Species 2000 and the American Integrated Taxono ...

Etymology

The genus name ''Euroschinus'' is derived from the Latin ''

eurus In Greek mythology and religion, Eurus () is the god and personification of the east wind, although sometimes he is also said to be southeast specifically. He is one of the four principal wind gods, the Anemoi, alongside Boreas (north wind), Ze ...

'' meaning east, and the existing South American genus ''

Schinus ''Schinus'' is a genus of flowering trees and tall shrubs in the sumac family, Anacardiaceae. Members of the genus are commonly known as pepper trees. The Peruvian pepper tree ('' Schinus molle'') is the source of the spice known as pink pep ...

''. The

species epithet Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany) ...

''falcatus'' is Latin for curved or sickle-shaped, referring to the leaves.

Vernacular names

A number of common names exist for this species, including blush cudgerie, maiden's blush, ribbonwood, chinaman's cedar, pink poplar, punburra, Port Macquarie beech and Jenny Donnelly.

Distribution and habitat

The blush cudgerie is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to Australia's east coast, and its natural range extends from the

Pascoe River The Pascoe River is a river in Far North Queensland, Australia. The headwaters rise under Mount Yangee in the Table Range, part of the Great Dividing Range at the northern end of Cape York Peninsula. The river initially flows south then west p ...

near the top of

south to the

Shoalhaven River The Shoalhaven River is a perennial stream, perennial river that rises from the Southern Tablelands and flows into an open mature wind wave, wave dominated estuary#Lagoon-type or bar-built, barrier estuary near Nowra on the South Coast, New Sou ...

in southeast New South Wales. It grows in tropical and sub-tropical rainforests, including beach forest and

riparian forest A riparian forest or riparian woodland is a forested or wooded area of land adjacent to a body of water such as a river, stream, pond, lake, marshland, estuary, canal, Sink (geography), sink, or reservoir. Due to the broad nature of the definitio ...

, but is probably most common in

monsoon forest Seasonal tropical forest, also known as moist deciduous, semi-evergreen seasonal, tropical mixed or monsoon forest, typically contains a range of tree species: only some of which drop some or all of their leaves during the dry season. This tropic ...

. It also inhabits woodlands and the margins of sclerophyll forest. The altitudinal range is from sea level to about .

Ecology

The fruit are eaten by various bird species, including

Lewin's honeyeater Lewin's honeyeater (''Meliphaga lewinii'') is a bird that inhabits the ranges along the east coast of Australia. It has a semicircular ear-patch, pale yellow in colour. The name of this bird commemorates the Australian artist John Lewin. Another ...

(''Meliphaga lewinii''),

rose-crowned fruit dove The rose-crowned fruit dove (''Ptilinopus regina''), also known as pink-capped fruit dove or Swainson's fruit dove, is a medium-sized fruit dove that is found in parts of southern Indonesia, northern Australia and eastern Australia. Taxonomy Th ...

(''Ptilinopus regina''),

topknot pigeon The topknot pigeon (''Lopholaimus antarcticus'') is a pigeon native to eastern Australia. Taxonomy English naturalist George Shaw described the topknot pigeon as ''Columba antarctica'' in 1793. The topknot pigeon is sister taxon to a lineage t ...

(''Lopholaimus antarcticus''),

crimson rosella The crimson rosella (''Platycercus elegans'') is a parrot native to eastern and south eastern Australia which has been introduced to New Zealand and Norfolk Island. It is commonly found in, but not restricted to, mountain forests and gardens. The ...

(''Platycercus elegans''),

green catbird The green catbird (''Ailuroedus crassirostris'') is a species of bowerbird found in subtropical forests along the east coast of Australia, from southeastern Queensland to southern New South Wales. It is named after its distinctive call which soun ...

(''Ailuroedus crassirostris''),

silvereye The silvereye or wax-eye (''Zosterops lateralis''), also known by its Māori name tauhou, is a very small omnivorous passerine bird of the south-west Pacific. In Australia and New Zealand its common name is sometimes white-eye, but this name is ...

(''Zosterops lateralis'') and

paradise riflebird The paradise riflebird (''Ptiloris paradiseus'') is a passerine bird of the family Paradisaeidae. It is one of four riflebird species in the genus ''Ptiloris''. It is found in subtropical, temperate rainforests in eastern Australia. The species ...

(''Ptiloris paradiseus''). The leaves eaten by

Lumholtz's tree-kangaroo Lumholtz's tree-kangaroo (''Dendrolagus lumholtzi'') is a rare, long-tailed marsupial found in rainforests in northeastern Australia. Like most tree-kangaroos (genus ''Dendrolagus''), it lives alone in trees and feeds on plant matter. It belongs ...

(''Dendrolagus lumholtzi'').

Gallery

File:Euroschinus falcatus 286065646.jpg, Young tree File:Euroschinus falcatus ALA5.jpg, Trunk and red new growth File:Euroschinus falcatus foliage.jpg, Foliage File:Euroschinus falcatus 286065428.jpg, Detail of leaf File:Euroschinus falcatus ALA3.jpg, Inflorescence File:Euroschinus falcatus ALA6.jpg, Close-up of flowers File:Euroschinus falcatus fruit.jpg, Fruit File:Euroschinus falcatus ALA4.jpg, Bark

References

External links

View a map
of herbarium records of this species at the

Australasian Virtual Herbarium The ''Australasian Virtual Herbarium'' (AVH) is an online resource that allows access to plant specimen data held by various Australian and New Zealand herbaria. It is part of the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), and was formed by the amalgama ...

View observations
of this species on

iNaturalist iNaturalist is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. iNaturalist may be accessed via its web ...

See images
of this species on Flickriver.com {{Taxonbar, from=Q5413812

falcatus ''Falcatus'' is an extinct genus of falcatid chondrichthyan which lived during the early Carboniferous Period in Bear Gulch bay in what is now Montana. Description This fish was quite small, only getting to around 25–30 cm or 10-12 i ...

Sapindales of Australia Flora of New South Wales Flora of Queensland Trees of Australia Taxa named by Joseph Dalton Hooker Plants described in 1862