Claoxylon australe, known as the Brittlewood is a common rainforest shrub or understorey tree. The habitat is all types of eastern Australian rainforests. The natural range of distribution is from Eden

Eden, New South Wales

Eden is a coastal town in the South Coast region of New South Wales, Australia. The town, south of the state capital Sydney near the border with Victoria, is located between Nullica Bay to the south and Calle Calle Bay, the northern reach of Twofold Bay, and built on undulating land adjacent to a...

 (37° S) in south eastern New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

 to Bowen

Bowen, Queensland

Bowen is a town on the eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. At the 2006 census, Bowen had a population of 7,484.-Geography:Bowen is located on the north-east coast of Australia, at exactly twenty degrees south of the equator. In fact, the twentieth parallel crosses the main street...

 (20° S) in tropical Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

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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. Bark is fawnish brown or grey, fairly smooth with some lines of vertical bumps and other irregularities. Branchlets often hairy, green turning to fawn with 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 alternate, simple and toothed in an irregular manner. Oblong or elliptical in shape, 5 to 12 cm long with a blunt leaf tip. Leaf stalks 1 to 4 cm long. Usually with two small glands at the apex. The midrib is paler than the leaf itself, venation is more evident under the leaf.

Greenish flowers form on raceme

Raceme

A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...

s in the months of October to November. Male and female flowers on separate plants, being dioecious

Dioecious

Dioecy is the property of a group of biological organisms that have males and females, but not members that have organs of both sexes at the same time. I.e., those whose individual members can usually produce only one type of gamete; each individual organism is thus distinctly female or male...

. The fruit matures in January to March, being a purple/black capsule. Globular in shape, 6 mm in diameter. Within each of the three lobes of the capsule is one red warty seed. Fruit eaten by the Brown Cuckoo-dove

Brown Cuckoo-dove

The Slender-billed Cuckoo-Dove, or Brown Cuckoo-Dove, Macropygia amboinensis, is a dove in the genus Macropygia. In Australia, it is sometimes called "Brown Pigeon" or "Pheasant Pigeon", but both are best avoided, as they can lead to confusion with the brown doves and the true Pheasant Pigeon...

 and Australian King Parrot

Australian King Parrot

The Australian King Parrot is endemic to eastern Australia. It is found in humid and heavily forested upland regions of the eastern portion of the continent, including eucalyptus wooded areas in and directly adjacent to subtropical and temperate rainforest...

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