Bridelia exaltata known as the Brush Ironbark or Scrub Ironbark is a tree of eastern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It occurs in and on the margins of the drier rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

s. Also occurring by streams, often in association with the Black Bean, up to an elevation of 600 metres above sea level. It occurs from Seal Rocks, New South Wales

Seal Rocks, New South Wales

Seal Rocks is a small coastal settlement in the Great Lakes Council Local Government Area, in the Mid North Coast/Hunter regions of New South Wales, Australia, north-north-east of Sydney...

 to Maryborough, Queensland

Maryborough, Queensland

Maryborough is a city located on the Mary River in South East Queensland, Australia, approximately north of the state capital, Brisbane. The city is serviced by the Bruce Highway, and has a population of approximately 22,000 . It is closely tied to its neighbour city Hervey Bay which is...

.

The generic name honours Samuel Elisée Bridel-Brideri

Samuel Elisée Bridel-Brideri

Samuel Elisée Bridel-Brideri was a Swiss-German bryologist.He studied at the University of Lausanne, and at the age of 19 began work as a tutor to the princes of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg...

, an expert on mosses. exaltata refers to the height of the tallest trees.

Description

A medium sized tree, occasionally as tall as 35 metres and with a stem diameter of 90 cm. The trunk is cylindrical, not buttressed at the base.

Bark is greyish brown. Rough and hard, but with some corky flakes. It can resemble the trunk of the Grey Persimmon

Diospyros pentamera

Diospyros pentamera is a common rainforest tree in the Ebony or Persimmon family growing from near Batemans Bay in New South Wales to the Atherton Tableland in tropical Queensland, Australia...

. Small branches green or brown without hairs, but with wrinkles and lenticel

Lenticel

A lenticel is an airy aggregation of cells within the structural surfaces of the stems, roots, and other parts of vascular plants. It functions as a pore, providing a medium for the direct exchange of gasses between the internal tissues and atmosphere, thereby bypassing the periderm, which would...

s.

Leaves

Leaves are alternate on the stem, simple in form with smooth entire edges. Leaves elliptic or narrow elliptical in shape, 5 to 12 cm long, 2 to 5 cm wide with a blunt tip. Leaves round at the base, glossy green above, and a duller grey-green and hairy below. Leaf veins seen on both surfaces, raised underneath. Around 15 pairs of lateral leaf veins, at an angle of 60 degrees to the midrib. Leaf stalks hairy, 3 to 5 mm long, purple or green. Leaves are thought to be poisonous to cattle.

Flowers and fruit

Yellowish green flowers form in July. Male and female flowers separate, but often on the same tree. The fruit is a glossy drupe

Drupe

In botany, a drupe is a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries...

. 1 cm in diameter. Orange brown in colour with small green or yellow spots. Inside is a two celled "stone" 8 mm in diameter. Usually one seed in each cell. Fruit ripe from March to July, eaten by a variety of birds.