''Claoxylon australe'', known as brittlewood is a common rainforest shrub or understorey tree. Its habitat includes all types of eastern Australian rainforests. The natural range of distribution is from Eden (37° S) in southeastern

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

to Bowen (20° S) in tropical

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

Description

A shrub or small tree growing to 9 metres in height and a trunk diameter of 30 cm. The trunk is cylindrical or somewhat flanged at the butt in larger plants. The bark is fawnish brown or grey, fairly smooth with some lines of vertical bumps and other irregularities. Branchlets are often hairy, green turning to fawn with

lenticel A lenticel is a porous tissue consisting of cells with large intercellular spaces in the periderm of the secondarily thickened organs and the Bark (botany), bark of woody stems and roots of gymnosperms and dicotyledonous flowering plants. It func ...

s. Leaves are alternate, simple and toothed in an irregular manner. They are oblong or elliptical in shape, 5 to 12 cm long with a blunt leaf tip. Leaf stalks are 1 to 4 cm long. There are usually two small glands at the apex. The midrib is paler than the leaf itself, and venation is more evident under the leaf. Greenish flowers form on

raceme A raceme () or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate growth, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are ...

s in the months of October and November. Male and female flowers occur on separate plants (

dioecious Dioecy ( ; ; adj. dioecious, ) is a characteristic of certain species that have distinct unisexual individuals, each producing either male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproduction is ...

). The fruit matures in January to March, being a purple-black capsule, which is globular in shape, 6 mm in diameter. Within each of the three lobes of the capsule is a single red warty seed. Its fruit is eaten by the

brown cuckoo-dove The brown cuckoo-dove (''Macropygia phasianella'') is a dove in the genus ''Macropygia'' found in Australia from Weipa and Aurukun in the north to Bega in the south, and most inland at Atherton and Toowoomba. It is sometimes called the "brown p ...

and

Australian king parrot The Australian king parrot (''Alisterus scapularis'') is a species of parrot endemic to eastern Australia ranging from Cooktown in Queensland to Port Campbell in Victoria (Australia), Victoria. Found in humid and heavily forested upland regions o ...

References

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(other publication details, included in citation)
* NSW Flora Online http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Claoxylon~australe retrieved 7 August 2009 {{Taxonbar, from=Q5125837 australe Malpighiales of Australia Trees of Australia Flora of New South Wales Flora of Queensland Taxa named by Henri Ernest Baillon Plants described in 1858